Podcast : Introduction à l’Objectivisme d’Ayn Rand, épisode 4

Dans cet épisode :

  • Les valeurs
  • Égoïsme et altruisme
  • Une éthique causale
  • Les vertus
  • L’absolutisme moral

Sources

Lorsqu’aucun nom n’est précisé, l’auteur est Ayn Rand. Si jamais un propos tenu au cours du podcast vous semble avoir besoin d’être sourcé et ne l’est pas ici, contactez moi, je ferai mon possible pour compléter ce manque. Mais ces sources n’ont pas vocation à être absolument exhaustives.

Introduction

[00:46] Ce qu’est l’éthique
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (New York, Signet / New American Library, 1964), chap. 1, p. 13 : « What is morality, or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a code. »
[00:57] L’éthique dépend de la métaphysique et de l’épistémologie
  • « Speaking Freely » (1972), interview d’Ayn Rand avec Edwin Newman, NBC-TV, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), chap. 27, p. 208 : « Any code of ethics needs an epistemological, as well as a metaphysical, base. »
  • « Philosophy: Who Needs It » (1974), dans Philosophy: Who Needs It (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1982), chap. 1, p. 4 : « Before you come to ethics, you must answer the questions posed by metaphysics and epistemology: Is man a rational being, able to deal with reality—or is he a helplessly blind misfit, a chip buffeted by the universal flux? Are achievement and enjoyment possible to man on earth—or is he doomed to failure and disaster? »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (New York, Plume, 1997), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 552 : « Every code of morality is based on and derived from a metaphysics, that is: from a certain view of the nature of the universe in which man has to live and act. »
  • « Philosophical Detection » (1974), dans Philosophy: Who Needs It (op. cit.), chap. 2, p. 14-15 : « In philosophy, the fundamentals are metaphysics and epistemology. On the basis of a knowable universe and of a rational faculty’s competence to grasp it, you can define man’s proper ethics, politics and esthetics. »

Les valeurs

[01:44] La première question éthique
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 13 : « The first question that has to be answered, as a precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: Why does man need a code of values? Let me stress this. The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all—and why? »
[02:24] Ce qu’est la vie
  • Atlas Shrugged (35th Anniversary Edition, New York, Dutton, 1992), p. 1013 : « Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 16 : « Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex—from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man—are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism’s life. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (New York, Dutton, 1991),  chap. 6 « Man », p. 189 : « The actions of a living organism are self-generated and goal-directed. They are actions initiated by the organism for the sake of achieving an end. »
[03:05] Rejet de la téléologie universelle
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 16, note de bas de page : « When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions of an organism, the term “goal-directed” is not to be taken to mean “purposive” (a concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term “goal-directed,” in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism’s life. »
  • « Theme and Plot » (1958), dans The Art of Fiction (New York: Plume, 2000), chap. 3, p. 20 : « This […] is one of my major differences from Aristotle. It is wrong to assume what in philosophy is known as teleology—namely, that a purpose set in advance in nature determines physical phenomena. The concept of the future tree determining the nature of the seed is impossible; it is the kind of concept that leads to mysticism and religion. »
[03:33] La vie est conditionnelle
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1012-1013 : « There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe: existence or non-existence—and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that action, it dies; its chemical elements remain, but its life goes out of existence. »
  • Ibid., p. 1014 : « Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 16 : « An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own body, the action of using that fuel properly. »
[04:22] Ce qu’est une valeur
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 15 : « In ethics, one must begin by asking: What are values? Why does man need them? “Value” is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. The concept “value” is not a primary; it presupposes an answer to the question: of value to whom and for what? It presupposes an entity capable of acting to achieve a goal in the face of an alternative. Where no alternative exists, no goals and no values are possible. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1012 : « “Value” is that which one acts to gain and keep […]. “Value” presupposes a standard, a purpose and the necessity of action in the face of an alternative. »
[05:03] La vie comme source des valeurs
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1013 : « It is only the concept of “Life” that makes the concept of “Value” possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 17 : « Epistemologically, the concept of “value” is genetically dependent upon and derived from the antecedent concept of “life.” To speak of “value” as apart from “life” is worse than a contradiction in terms. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 562 : « [O]nly the nature of a living organism, only the requirements of an organism’s life make the existence of values possible. »
[05:27] La vie de l’organisme comme norme
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 16 : « An organism’s life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, from its physical background, and the action of its own body, the action of using that fuel properly. What standard determines what is proper in this context? The standard is the organism’s life, or: that which is required for the organism’s survival. »
  • Ibid., p. 17 : « An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil. »
[05:43] Les valeurs morales
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1013 : « Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 214 : « Plants and animals pursue values, but not moral values; they have goals, but not ethics. Moral values are a subcategory of values, defined by two conditions. “Moral values” are chosen values of a fundamental nature. They are “fundamental” in the sense that they shape a man’s character and life course. Other kinds of value, by contrast, are specialized—e.g., a man’s estimates in regard to government or art, which constitute not his moral, but his political or esthetic values. »
[06:20] La morale suppose le libre choix
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1025 : « A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. »
  • Lettre à Rose Wilder Lane, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 355 : « The conception of “morality” is applicable only to issues in which choice is involved. »
  • Lettre à Isabel Paterson du 8 mai 1948, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 5 « Letters to Isabel Paterson », p. 212-213 : « I have always understood morality to apply only to the actions open to man’s choice. I have always thought that morality cannot be divorced from free will. »
  • Interview d’Ayn Rand pour Playboy, mars 1964 : « Morality pertains only to the sphere of man’s free will—only to those actions which are open to his choice. »
[06:40] La nécessité de la morale
  • Lettre à Rose Wilder Lane, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 354 : « Why is [morality] necessary? Because man is a being endowed with free will. This means that his actions are not automatic; that he has to function through choice. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1012 : « A being of volitional consciousness has no automatic course of behavior. He needs a code of values to guide his actions. »
  • Ibid., p. 1015 : « It is for the purpose of self-preservation that man needs a code of morality. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 23 : « Ethics is not a mystic fantasy—nor a social convention—nor a dispensable, subjective luxury, to be switched or discarded in any emergency. Ethics is an objective, metaphysical necessity of man’s survival—not by the grace of the supernatural nor of your neighbors nor of your whims, but by the grace of reality and the nature of life. »
[07:17] La vie de l’homme comme norme morale
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1014 : « There is a morality of reason, a morality proper to man, and Man’s Life is its standard of value. All that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; all that which destroys it is the evil. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 23 : « The standard of value of the Objectivist ethics—the standard by which one judges what is good or evil—is man’s life, or: that which is required for man’s survival qua man. »
  • Ibid., p. 25 : « The Objectivist ethics holds man’s life as the standard of value—and his own life as the ethical purpose of every individual man. »
  • « The Moral Basis of Individualism », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 3 « Transition Between Novels », chap. 8, entrée du 6 septembre 1943, p. 255 : « The establishment of values requires a standard. What is the standard by which moral values are to be set? Good and evil? Good—for what? Evil—to whom? The nature of man sets the standard of his moral code. Man’s survival sets the purpose. […] All that which furthers his survival is good. All that which obstructs it is evil. »
[08:00] La raison comme outil fondamental de survie de l’homme
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 21 : « For man, the basic means of survival is reason. Man cannot survive, as animals do, by the guidance of mere percepts. A sensation of hunger will tell him that he needs food (if he has learned to identify it as “hunger”), but it will not tell him how to obtain his food and it will not tell him what food is good for him or poisonous. He cannot provide for his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He needs a process of thought to discover how to plant and grow his food or how to make weapons for hunting. His percepts might lead him to a cave, if one is available—but to build the simplest shelter, he needs a process of thought. No percepts and no “instincts” will tell him how to light a fire, how to weave cloth, how to forge tools, how to make a wheel, how to make an airplane, how to perform an appendectomy, how to produce an electric light bulb or an electronic tube or a cyclotron or a box of matches. Yet his life depends on such knowledge—and only a volitional act of his consciousness, a process of thought, can provide it. »
  • The Fountainhead (New York: Signet, 1952, ouvrage original publié en 1943), p. 679 : « Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1012 : « [Y]ou are not free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival—so that for you, who are a human being, the question “to be or not to be” is the question “to think or not to think.”
[08:20] Le contexte de la vie entière
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 24 : « Man cannot survive, like an animal, by acting on the range of the moment. An animal’s life consists of a series of separate cycles, repeated over and over again, such as the cycle of breeding its young, or of storing food for the winter; an animal’s consciousness cannot integrate its entire lifespan; it can carry just so far, then the animal has to begin the cycle all over again, with no connection to the past. Man’s life is a continuous whole: for good or evil, every day, year and decade of his life holds the sum of all the days behind him. He can alter his choices, he is free to change the direction of his course, he is even free, in many cases, to atone for the consequences of his past— but he is not free to escape them, nor to live his life with impunity on the range of the moment, like an animal, a playboy or a thug. If he is to succeed at the task of survival, if his actions are not to be aimed at his own destruction, man has to choose his course, his goals, his values in the context and terms of a lifetime. No sensations, percepts, urges or “instincts” can do it; only a mind can. »
[08:38] La vie de l’homme en tant qu’homme
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 24 : « Such is the meaning of the definition: that which is required for man’s survival qua man. It does not mean a momentary or a merely physical
    survival. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a mindless brute, waiting for another brute to crush his skull. It does not mean the momentary physical survival of a crawling aggregate of muscles who is willing to accept any terms, obey any thug and surrender any values, for the sake of what is known as “survival at any price,” which may or may not last a week or a year. “Man’s survival qua man” means the terms, methods, conditions and goals required for the survival of a rational being through the whole of his lifespan—in all those aspects of existence which are open to his choice. »
[09:00] La survie physique dépend de la survie psychologique
  • « The Moral Basis of Individualism », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 3 « Transition Between Novels », chap. 8, entrée du 6 septembre 1943, p. 254-255 : « The whole truth is that man cannot preserve his body unless he preserves his soul. His spiritual survival precedes his physical survival—the last is not possible without the first. »
  • « The Psycho-Epistemology of Art » (1965), dans The Romantic Manifesto (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 5 : « …not to his physical survival, but to that on which his physical survival depends: to the preservation and survival of his consciousness. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1056-1057 : « By a feeling he has not learned to identify, but has derived from his first awareness of existence, from his discovery that he has to make choices, man knows that his desperate need of self-esteem is a matter of life or death. »
  • « Our Cultural Value-Deprivation« , dans The Voice of Reason (New York: Meridian, 1990) chap. 11, p. 102 : « Values are the motivating power of man’s actions and a necessity of his survival, psychologically as well as physically. »
[09:20] Citation de Rand sur le bien et le mal
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 23 : « Since reason is man’s basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil. »
[09:36] La loi de Hume
  • HUME David, Traité de la nature humaine (ouvrage de 1739, trad. Philippe Folliot, 2007), Livre III : « De la morale », Partie I : « De la vertu et du vice en général », Section I : « Les distinctions morales viennent d’un sens moral », édition numérique « Les Classiques des sciences sociales », Université du Québec, p. 16 : « Dans tous les systèmes de morale que j’ai rencontrés jusqu’alors, j’ai toujours remarqué que les auteurs, pendant un certain temps, procèdent selon la façon habituelle de raisonner et établissent l’existence de Dieu ou font des observations sur les affaires humaines ; puis, soudain, je suis surpris de voir qu’au lieu des habituelles copules est et n’est pas, je ne rencontre que des propositions reliées par un doit ou un ne doit pas. Ce changement est imperceptible mais néanmoins de la première importance. En effet, comme ce doit ou ne doit pas exprime une nouvelle relation ou affirmation, il est nécessaire qu’on la remarque et qu’on l’explique. En même temps, il faut bien expliquer comment cette nouvelle relation peut être déduite des autres qui en sont entièrement différentes car cela semble totalement inconcevable. Mais, comme les auteurs n’usent pas habituellement de cette précaution, je me permettrai de la recommander aux lecteurs et je suis persuadé que cette petite attention renversera tous les systèmes courants de morale et nous fera voir que la distinction du vice et de la vertu ne se fonde pas simplement sur les relations des objets et qu’elle n’est pas perçue par la raison. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 17 : « In answer to those philosophers who claim that no relation can be established between ultimate ends or values and the facts of reality, let me stress that the fact that living entities exist and function necessitates the existence of values and of an ultimate value which for any given living entity is its own life. Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality. The fact that a living entity is, determines what it ought to do. So much for the issue of the relation between “is” and “ought.” »
[10:54] L’éthique comme épistémologie appliquée
  • « The Foundations of Morality », interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 19, p. 139 : « Morality, along with the rest of the sciences we call the humanities, is not different in this respect from the physical sciences. You do not rely on revelation in the physical sciences. One of the most important points in Atlas Shrugged is that the trouble with the world is that men employ a completely different approach for moral issues than for scientific issues. Morality, which is a code of values and actions, has to be as rational as any other scientific discipline. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 242-243 : « Concepts are aspects of reality in relation to man. That is: concepts designate facts—perceived objects with their similarities and differences—as condensed by human consciousness, in accordance with a rational method (logic). Similarly, the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man. That is: the good designates facts—the requirements of survival—as identified conceptually, and then evaluated by human consciousness in accordance with a rational standard of value (life). Moral knowledge, therefore, follows the basic pattern of all conceptual knowledge. »
[11:04] Le choix de vivre comme base de la morale
  • « Causality versus Duty » (1970), dans Philosophy: Who Needs It (op. cit.), chap. 10, p. 118 : « Life or death is man’s only fundamental alternative. To live is his basic act of choice. If he chooses to live, a rational ethics will tell him what principles of action are required to implement his choice. If he does not choose to live, nature will take its course. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1018 : « My morality, the morality of reason, is contained in a single axiom: existence exists—and in a single choice: to live. The rest proceeds from these. »
[11:30] « Pourquoi devrais-je choisir de vivre ? »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 562 : « [O]ne cannot ask: “Why should I choose my own life as my ultimate value?”—because one has already accepted it by accepting the concept “value,” because the concept “value” has no other source, base, meaning or possibility of existing. »
  • GOTTHELF Allan, « The Choice to Value » (1990), dans Metaethics, Egoism and Virtue (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), partie « Reason, Choice, and the Ultimate End », p. 43-44 : « With the choice to live, however, we are speaking of the very choice to have an ultimate value at all—the very choice to value at all. This choice to value is a primary: it is not to be justified by anything prior. Just as, in Objectivist epistemology, axioms are neither proved nor unprovable (in the sense skeptics mean), but are the precondition of proof, so the choice to live is neither reasonable nor unreasonable, but is the precondition for its being reasonable or unreasonable to act in any specific way. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 248 : « A primary choice does not mean an “arbitrary,” “whimsical,” or “groundless” choice. There are grounds for a (certain) primary choice, and those grounds are reality—all of it. The choice to live, as we have seen, is the choice to accept the realm of reality. This choice is not only not arbitrary. It is the precondition of criticizing the arbitrary; it is the base of reason. »
  • Voir aussi sur ce blog : « De l’être au devrait être« .
[11:58] Le choix de vivre n’est pas un devoir
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1015 : « No, you do not have to live; it is your basic act of choice; but if you choose to live, you must live as a man—by the work and the judgment of your mind. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 244 : « The “demands” of reality, however, are not commandments, duties, or « categorical imperatives.” Reality does not issue orders, such as “You must live” or “You must think” or “You must be selfish.” The objective approach involves a relationship between existence and consciousness; the latter has to make a contribution here, in the form of a specific choice. Existence, therefore, does demand of man a certain course, it does include the fact that he must act in a certain way—if; if, that is, he chooses a certain goal. »
[12:11] Le choix du néant
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1014 : « Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death. Such a being is a metaphysical monstrosity, struggling to oppose, negate and contradict the fact of his own existence, running blindly amuck on a trail of destruction, capable of nothing but pain. »
  • Ibid., p. 1046 : « [W]hoever rejects reality rejects existence—and the feelings that move him from then on are hatred for all the values of man’s life, and lust for all the evils that destroy it. »
  • Ibid., p. 1145 : « [I]t was the lust to destroy whatever was living, for the sake of whatever was not. It was the urge to defy reality by the destruction of every living value, for the sake of proving to himself that he could exist in defiance of reality and would never have to be bound by any solid, immutable facts. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 248 : « A man who would throw away his life without cause, who would reject the universe on principle and embrace a zero for its own sake—such a man, according to Objectivism, would belong on the lowest rung of hell. »
[12:32] Le cas du suicide légitime
  • Séance de questions-réponses dans « Of Living Death » (conférence donnée en 1968), enregistrement YouTube [01:17:53] : « So in principle, a man has the right to commit suicide—but it is enormously inadvisable. […] One would have to say that there are many moral reasons why a man should not take his own life. One would also have to say there are situations in which he may have perfectly valid reasons, and it is his own life… »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 247-248 : « I want to mention first that suicide is sometimes justified, according to Objectivism. Suicide is justified when man’s life, owing to circumstances outside of a person’s control, is no longer possible; an example might be a person with a painful terminal illness, or a prisoner in a concentration camp who sees no chance of escape. In cases such as these, suicide is not necessarily a philosophic rejection of life or of reality. On the contrary, it may very well be their tragic reaffirmation. Self-destruction in such contexts may amount to the tortured cry: “Man’s life means so much to me that I will not settle for anything less. I will not accept a living death as a substitute.” »
  • « The Ethics of Emergencies« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 45-46 : « If it is the man or woman one loves, then one can be willing to give one’s own life to save him or her—for the selfish reason that life without the loved person could be unbearable. »
[13:20] Objectivité des valeurs
  • Lettre à Mme Austin du 29 juillet 1946, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 294 : « Morality is an objective standard, true for all men, if it is a rational morality that proves on rational grounds why certain actions are good and other actions are evil. »
  • « What is Capitalism? » (1965), dans Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (Signet Books ed. New York: The New American Library, 1967), chap. 1, p. 24 : « Since values are determined by the nature of reality, it is reality that serves as men’s ultimate arbiter […] By “philosophically objective,” I mean a value estimated from the standpoint of the best possible to man, i.e., by the criterion of the most rational mind possessing the greatest knowledge, in a given category, in a given period, and in a defined context (nothing can be estimated in an undefined context). »
  • « The Foundations of Morality », interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 19, p. 141 : « “Objective” means that which corresponds to reality in man’s mind. It means the human grasp of that which exists outside his consciousness, in the objective world. The same knowledge is available to all of us. This does not mean, however, that all men will want to know. Therefore, it doesn’t mean that we have to wait for all of mankind to accept the right morality before we are convinced that it is right. But it does mean that all men should be able to grasp the right morality, provided they are willing to make the mental effort. It should be, in principle, demonstrable to all men—which is different from saying that all men will be interested in the demonstration. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 241 : « For Objectivism, values, like concepts, are not intrinsic or subjective, but objective.« 
[13:51] Citation de Rand sur le bien objectif
  • « What is Capitalism? » (1965), dans Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 22 : « The objective theory holds that the good is neither an attribute of “things in themselves” nor of man’s emotional states, but an evaluation of the facts of reality by man’s consciousness according to a rational standard of value. (Rational, in this context, means: derived from the facts of reality and validated by a process of reason.) The objective theory holds that the good is an aspect of reality in relation to man—and that it must be discovered, not invented, by man. Fundamental to an objective theory of values is the question: Of value to whom and for what? An objective theory does not permit context-dropping or “concept-stealing”; it does not permit the separation of “value” from “purpose,” of the good from beneficiaries, and of man’s actions from reason. »
[15:09] Les valeurs ne sont pas subjectives
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. x : « Just as man cannot survive by any random means, but must discover and practice the principles which his survival requires, so man’s self-interest cannot be determined by blind desires or random whims, but must be discovered and achieved by the guidance of rational principles. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 34-35 : « The subjectivist theory of ethics is, strictly speaking, not a theory, but a negation of ethics. And more: it is a negation of reality, a negation not merely of man’s existence, but of all existence. Only the concept of a fluid, plastic, indeterminate, Heraclitean universe could permit anyone to think or to preach that man needs no objective principles of action—that reality gives him a blank check on values—that anything he cares to pick as the good or the evil, will do—that a man’s whim is a valid moral standard, and that the only question is how to get away with it. »
  • « The Ethics of Objectivism », interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 22, p. 161 : « The subjectivist, or hedonist, approach to morality is precisely what Objectivism rejects. A man has the right to live for his own sake, but since a certain kind of policy is required for him to live, he must hold the right values. He cannot choose his values at whim—or rather, he can, but he will perish for doing so. Whim-worship is evil morally and impractical in action. A man has to choose his values by reason. »
  • Lettre à Mme Austin du 29 juillet 1946, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 294 : « No, each man is not “his own criterion of what is right.” Reason is the criterion. A man deciding that something is right just because he says so, does not make it right. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 3 janvier 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 557 : « Since no values can be pursued or achieved (or even conceived of ) except in terms of and in relation to physical reality, since man exists in physical reality and cannot step outside of it, any man or philosopher who chooses to be a “subjectivist about values” simply means that he proposes to act against the objective facts of reality (he proposes to choose goals which contradict his knowledge of reality, and to achieve them by means which contradict his knowledge of reality). »
[15:34] Objectif n’est pas intrinsèque
  • « What is Capitalism? » (1965), dans Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 21 : « The intrinsic theory holds that the good is inherent in certain things or actions as such, regardless of their context and consequences, regardless of any benefit or injury they may cause to the actors and subjects involved. It is a theory that divorces the concept of “good” from beneficiaries, and the concept of “value” from valuer and purpose— claiming that the good is good in, by, and of itself. »
  • Ibid., p. 23 : « Values cannot exist (cannot be valued) outside the full context of a man’s life, needs, goals, and knowledge. »
  • Ibid., p. 22 : « If a man believes that the good is intrinsic in certain—actions, he will not hesitate to force others to perform them. If he believes that the human benefit or injury caused by such actions is of no significance, he will regard a sea of blood as of no significance. If he believes that the beneficiaries of such actions are irrelevant (or interchangeable), he will regard wholesale slaughter as his moral duty in the service of a “higher” good. It is the intrinsic theory of values that produces a Robespierre, a Lenin, a Stalin, or a Hitler. It is not an accident that Eichmann was a Kantian. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « A Revolution: The Birth of Reason (Part II) » (1972), dans Founders of Western Philosophy (Santa Ana, CA: Ayn Rand Institute Press, 2023), « Lecture 5, Q&A » : « We hold that values are objective, not intrinsic to reality, that is, they are based on facts of reality, but they presuppose a certain type of being, and are designed for the purposes of that being. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « Philosophy Becomes Religious—and Recovers (Part II) » (1972), dans Ibid., « Lecture 8, Q&A » : « [Y]ou have to know what the objective is, as a category distinct from the intrinsic and the subjective. You have to know what it means to say value is objective, so that it’s not simply a feature out there in the world that requires an intuition (and makes it intrinsic), or an arbitrary invention in the mind (and, therefore, subjective). You have to grasp the metaphysical category of the objective, as against the intrinsic and the subjective. […] To my knowledge, no one has grasped the objective as distinct from the intrinsic and the subjective prior to Ayn Rand. The objective has always been equated with the intrinsic. And that was one of the major problems of all philosophy. »
[16:36] Objectivité et choix personnel
  • « What is Capitalism? » (1965), dans Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (Signet Books ed. New York: The New American Library, 1967), chap. 1, p. 24 : « Since values are established contextually, every man must judge for himself, in the context of his own knowledge, goals, and interests. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 323 : « The principles of ethics, as of epistemology, are objective. Virtues and values, therefore, like concepts, involve an element of the optional. In the realm of thought, one must choose English, French, or some other language from an array of possibilities, each of which is consonant with the rules of conceptualization. Similarly, in the realm of action, one must choose a course of behavior from an array of possibilities which are consonant with the rules of morality. For example, morality upholds the virtue of productiveness. But should one be a physician, an artist, a philosopher, a businessman? Each individual has to answer for himself, taking into account his own context—his interests, needs, opportunities. »
  • SMITH Tara, « Rational Egoism: A Profile of Its Foundations and Basic Character« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2006), chap. 2, p. 27 : « In endorsing the objectivity of values, Rand is not asserting the universality of all values. Nothing in Rand’s account entails that the entire roster of things that are objectively valuable for one person must also be valuable for every other person. Objectivity allows for a range of values that can vary (within limits) between different individuals. »
[16:56] Citation de Rand sur l’abstrait et le concret
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 25 : « “That which is required for the survival of man qua man” is an abstract principle that applies to every individual man. The task of applying this principle to a concrete, specific purpose—the purpose of living a life proper to a rational being—belongs to every individual man, and the life he has to live is his own. »
[17:22] L’éthique ne fournit pas de règles concrètes
  • « The Moral Basis of Individualism », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (éd. HARRIMAN David, New York: Plume, 1999), part. 3 « Transition Between Novels », chap. 8, entrée du 22 juillet 1945, p. 295 : « Isn’t the greatest error of all morality the fact that the moral systems prescribed concrete rules, arbitrarily, instead of general principles that would allow men precisely the essence of morality—a free choice between good and evil? »
  • « Applying Philosophy Without Preaching It » (1969) dans The Art of NonFiction (New York: Plume / Penguin Putnam, 2001), chap. 4, p. 30 : « Philosophy does not tell you concretely what to feel or think; it tells you what is true and right. If you have to judge something (e.g., a work of art, a government policy, a personal relationship), your philosophy gives you the right principles by which to judge it (if your philosophy is rational). Philosophy provides you with a criterion—but cannot apply it for you. In judging anything or anyone, you must decide whether it or he is good or bad. Philosophy cannot give you a set of dogmas to be applied automatically. Religion does that—and unsuccessfully. »
  • « Question Period », dans PEIKOFF Leonard, The Philosophy of Objectivism (séminaire, 1976), leçon 10, questions-réponses (intervention de Rand), enregistrement YouTube [02:23:19] : « [A]ll that philosophy can give you is principles. […] But that’s still an abstract level. […] What philosophy doesn’t give you is how to apply those principles […] to the events and the choices of your own life. It’s in regard to concretes that your mind is the sole determinant of what to do. And nobody can help you or should help you with that. That is where your own mind has to decide: how to apply the principles you have accepted […] to the concrets problems of your life. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 276 : « Virtue does not consist in obeying concrete-bound rules (“Do not lie, do not kill, do not accept help from others, make money, honor your parents, etc.”). No such rules can be defended or consistently practiced; so people throw up their hands and flout all rules. The proper approach is to recognize that virtues are broad abstractions, which one must apply to concrete situations by a process of thought. »
[18:09] Les valeurs cardinales
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1018 : « To live, man must hold three things as the supreme and ruling values of his life: Reason—Purpose—Self-esteem. Reason, as his only tool of knowledge—Purpose, as his choice of the happiness which that tool must proceed to achieve—Self-esteem, as his inviolate certainty that his mind is competent to think and his person is worthy of happiness, which means: is worthy of living. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 25 : « The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics—the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life—are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem… »
[18:48] Le bonheur comme but moral
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1014 : « The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. »
  • Ibid., p. 1021 : « His own happiness is man’s only moral purpose, but only his own virtue can achieve it. »
  • Ibid., p. 1059 : « Accept the fact that the achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness—not pain or mindless self-indulgence—is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 27 : « To live for his own sake means that the achievement of his own happiness is man’s highest moral purpose. »
  • « The Ethics of Emergencies« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 49 : « The moral purpose of a man’s life is the achievement of his own happiness. »
  • Ibid., p. 29 : « The maintenance of life and the pursuit of happiness are not two separate issues. To hold one’s own life as one’s ultimate value, and one’s own happiness as one’s highest purpose are two aspects of the same achievement. Existentially, the activity of pursuing rational goals is the activity of maintaining one’s life; psychologically, its result, reward and concomitant is an emotional state of happiness. »
[19:13] Ne pas confondre norme et but
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 29 : « But the relationship of cause to effect cannot be reversed. It is only by accepting “man’s life” as one’s primary and by pursuing the rational values it requires that one can achieve happiness—not by taking “happiness” as some undefined, irreducible primary and then attempting to live by its guidance. If you achieve that which is the good by a rational standard of value, it will necessarily make you happy; but that which makes you happy, by some undefined emotional standard, is not necessarily the good. To take “whatever makes one happy” as a guide to action means: to be guided by nothing but one’s emotional whims. Emotions are not tools of cognition; to be guided by whims—by desires whose source, nature and meaning one does not know—is to turn oneself into a blind robot, operated by unknowable demons (by one’s stale evasions), a robot knocking its stagnant brains out against the walls of reality which it refuses to see. […] “Happiness” can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man’s proper code of values and thus to give him the means of achieving happiness. »
  • « Notes: 1955-1977 », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 5 « Final Years », chap. 15, entrée du 28 mai 1955, p. 295 : « The crucial error of the man who chooses “emotions above mind” in the sub-basement consists of acquiring an “epistemology” that makes emotions part of his thinking process in the specific role of a judge of values and, later, almost the judge of truth and facts (or the meaning of facts) and, therefore, the judge of certainty in any given thought process. While to a rational man the answer to a problem is a factual identification or explanation of reality—to a sub-basement emotionalist the answer to a problem is the achievement of a happy or positive emotion. The formula for this crucial difference is as follows: An emotionalist’s identification of values is: “The good is that which will make me happy. ” A rational man’s identification of values is: “I will be made happy by that which is good.” »

Égoïsme et altruisme

[19:45] Caractère secondaire des situations d’urgence
  • « The Ethics of Emergencies« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 48-49 : « Every code of ethics is based on and derived from a metaphysics, that is: from a theory about the fundamental nature of the universe in which man lives and acts. […] Observe also that the advocates of altruism are unable to base their ethics on any facts of men’s normal existence and that they always offer “lifeboat” situations as examples from which to derive the rules of moral conduct. (“What should you do if you and another man are in a lifeboat that can carry only one?” etc.) The fact is that men do not live in lifeboats—and that a lifeboat is not the place on which to base one’s metaphysics. »
  • Voir aussi : « How Ethics Can Guide Our Lives, Not Just Resolve Dilemmas » et « Why the Red/Blue Button Moral Dilemma is a Trap » sur la chaîne YouTube du Ayn Rand Institute.
[20:17] L’éthique comme formation de soi
  • « Art and Moral Treason« (1965), dans The Romantic Manifesto (Second Revised Edition, New York, Signet / New American Library, 1975), chap. 9, p. 138 : « Apart from its many other evils, conventional morality is not concerned with the formation of a child’s character. It does not teach or show him what kind of man he ought to be and why… »
  • « The Goal of my Writings » (1963), dans The Romantic Manifesto (op. cit.), chap. 11, p. 156-157 : « Since my purpose is the presentation of an ideal man, I had to define and present the conditions which make him possible and which his existence requires. Since man’s character is the product of his premises, I had to define and present the kind of premises and values that create the character of an ideal man and motivate his actions; which means that I had to define and present a rational code of ethics. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1020-1021 : « [O]f any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character —that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind—that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul—that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice… »
[20:24] Les conditions normales
  • « The Ethics of Emergencies« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 47 : « By “normal” conditions I mean metaphysically normal, normal in the nature of things, and appropriate to human existence. Men can live on land, but not in water or in a raging fire. Since men are not omnipotent, it is metaphysically possible for unforeseeable disasters to strike them, in which case their only task is to return to those conditions under which their lives can continue. By its nature, an emergency situation is temporary; if it were to last, men would perish. »
[20:33] La morale n’est pas un sujet social
  • « The Moral Basis of Individualism », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 3 « Transition Between Novels », chap. 8, entrée du 29 juin 1945, p. 275 : « Before you come to “any principle as a guide in his relations to other men,” cover the point of how the morality of reason applies to man alone—even to a man on a desert island. The first commandment is to exercise his reason. Morality is not social (and don’t forget the evils that come from thinking that it is). Only after you have established this, can you come to morality in relation to other men. »
  • « Notes While Writing: 1947-1952 », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 4 « Atlas Shrugged« , chap. 13, entrée du 6 octobre 1949, p. 610 : « If any school of morality considers morality a social, not an individual,matter—i.e., a code for the relation of man to man, and not for man’s own conduct in regard to himself—then, of course, it will necessarily be a collectivist [theory] and it will not work. »
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 148 : « Social relationships are a consequence of your own premises and values—they are not a primary. »
  • « The Psycho-Epistemology of Art » (1965), dans The Romantic Manifesto (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 4 : « It is an instance of the inhumanity of any moral theory that regards moral values as a purely social matter. »
[20:47] La morale n’a pas toujours été abordée comme un sujet social
  • ROGERS Kelly (éd.), Self-Interest (New York: Routledge, 1997), 1. « Classical Era », p. 5 : « [For the classical philosophers] self-concern was not only considered acceptable, but the foundation of the moral life. The dominant ethical paradigm at the time held that the moral purpose of each individual is to promote his own personal happiness (eudaimonia). The philosophical debate concerned not whether we are justified in pursuing our self-interest, but what are the best means for doing so. »
  • FALK Werner D., « Morality, Self, and Others » (1963), dans BLOOMFIELD Paul (éd.), Morality and Self-Interest (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), chap 11., p. 226-227 : « Not everyone will agree that as a moral being one has only commitments toward others or that only such commitments are properly “moral.” The Greeks, for example, took a wider view. For Plato the equivalent of a moral being was the just or right-living person, and of a moral commitment the right and just course—the one which the right-living person would be led to take. And this right-living person was one who would keep himself in good shape as a sane and self-possessed being, and who would do whatever good and sufficient reasons directed him to do. »
  • ARISTOTE, Éthique à Nicomaque (Flammarion, trad. Richard Bodéüs, 2004), neuvième partie, p. 463-464, [1166a15] : « [L’homme vertueux] se souhaite aussi à lui-même du bien […] de plus, il y travaille dans le souci de sa propre personne, puisque la faculté de penser qu’il veut favoriser par tous les moyens est précisément ce en quoi consiste chaque individu, semble-t-il. D’autre part, il se souhaite aussi de vivre, de rester sain et sauf et surtout de conserver la faculté qui lui permet de penser. Car c’est un bien pour le vertueux que l’existence, et chacun se souhaite du bien à lui-même. […] De plus, l’homme vertueux souhaite passer du temps à s’entretenir avec lui-même, car il a du plaisir ce faisant. »
[21:10] Besoin de morale sur une île déserte
  • « Notes While Writing: 1947-1952 », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 4 « Atlas Shrugged », chap. 13, entrée du 6 octobre 1949, p. 611 : « Most blatantly obvious, in theory and in observable practice, is the fact that man’s moral code has to apply primarily to his own private conduct in relation to himself and his life—and that only on the basis of the right code toward himself will he or can he observe any sort of moral code toward others. Conventionally, it is thought that a man on a desert island needs no moral code. That is where he would need it the most. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1018 : « You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island—it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today—and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it. »
[21:19] L’alliage fallacieux des approches sociales
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 557 : « To sum up the foregoing: there are two questions in ethics, which the traditional moralists lump together into an undifferentiated package-deal— a. What are values?—b. Who should be the beneficiary of values? »
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. viii : « There are two moral questions which altruism lumps together into one “package-deal”: (1) What are values? (2) Who should be the beneficiary of values? Altruism substitutes the second for the first; it evades the task of defining a code of moral values, thus leaving man, in fact, without moral guidance. »
[21:50] Altruisme et bénéficiaire
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. viii : « Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value—and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes. »
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. x : « The choice of the beneficiary of moral values is merely a preliminary or introductory issue in the field of morality. It is not a substitute for morality nor a criterion of moral value, as altruism has made it. Neither is it a moral primary: it has to be derived from and validated by the fundamental premises of a moral system. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1030 : « Your standard of virtue is not an object, not an act, not a principle, but an intention. You need no proof, no reasons, no success, you need not achieve in fact the good of others —all you need to know is that your motive was the good of others, not your own. Your only definition of the good is a negation: the good is the “non-good for me.” »
[22:17] L’acteur comme bénéficiaire légitime
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. x : « The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest. But his right to do so is derived from his nature as man and from the function of moral values in human life… »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1014 : « Man’s life is the standard of morality, but your own life is its purpose. If existence on earth is your goal, you must choose your actions and values by the standard of that which is proper to man—for the purpose of preserving, fulfilling and enjoying the irreplaceable value which is your life. […] By the grace of reality and the nature of life, man—every man—is an end in himself, he exists for his own sake, and the achievement of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 230-231 : « In the Objectivist view, the validation of egoism consists in showing that it is a corollary of man’s life as the moral standard. […] The alternative with which reality confronts a living organism is its own life or death. The goal is self-preservation. »
[22:50] Contradiction de la rupture acteur/bénéficiaire
  • « The Ethics of Objectivism », interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 22, p. 160 : « After establishing man’s life as the standard of morality, the Objectivist ethics begins by saying that since man can survive only by his own efforts and since his capacity to value is a condition of his nature as a living being, he can live only for his own sake. He can live only by taking himself as his highest value, as the goal of all his efforts. Why? Because that is where his valuing capacity comes from. To claim that you value service to others as a primary, above your own interests, is a logical contradiction. You cannot claim values if you do not value the valuer. If you attach no importance to yourself and your own judgment, you have denied the base from which your capacity to value comes. To value anything other than your own life as a primary is a contradiction in terms. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 562 : « Since the standard “man’s life” is derived from the nature of values, from the fact that only life makes values possible (that is: only the nature of a living organism, only the requirements of an organism’s life make the existence of values possible)—to choose any value, other than one’s own life, as the ultimate purpose of one’s actions is to be guilty of a contradiction and of the fallacy of the “stolen concept.” […] [O]ne cannot ask: “Why should I choose my own life as my ultimate value?”—because one has already accepted it by accepting the concept “value,” because the concept “value” has no other source, base, meaning or possibility of existing. » »
[23:12] Injustice de la rupture acteur/bénéficiaire
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 557 : « Since all values have to be gained and/or kept by men’s actions, any breach between actor and beneficiary necessitates injustice: the sacrifice of some men to others, of the actors or producers to the beneficiaries. Nothing could ever justify or validate such a breach. »
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. ix : « Since all values have to be gained and/or kept by men’s actions, any breach between actor and beneficiary necessitates an injustice: the sacrifice of some men to others, of the actors to the non-actors, of the moral to the immoral. Nothing could ever justify such a breach, and no one ever has. »
[23:38] L’égoïsme peut bénéficier à autrui
  • Lettre à Robert Spencer Carr du 23 janvier 1949, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 422 : « [O]nly an act of true selfishness motivated by and intended for one’s own benefit can be of any benefit or value to others—and only as a secondary consequence.« 
  • BRANDEN Nathaniel, « Isnt’t Everyone Selfish? », dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 5, p. 58 : « Because a genuinely selfish man chooses his goals by the guidance of reason—and because the interests of rational men do not clash—other men may often benefit from his actions. But the benefit of other men is not his primary purpose or goal; his own benefit is his primary purpose and the conscious goal directing his actions. »
  • Lettre à Rose Wilder Lane, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 353 : « Man’s interests, or advantages, are neither opposed nor united to the interests and advantages of other men; they are independent. As a secondary consequence, a man’s pursuit of his own personal advantage often does benefit other men—such as a man’s scientific, artistic or industrial work does benefit society—but it is only a secondary consequence, it is not always so and does not have to be so. »
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 151 : « When you raise your own level, in the sense of any rational achievement, a secondary consequence is that all mankind profits, each person to the extent of his own rationality. When you attain any rational goal, it is of benefit to other men because they too gain a value from it—new knowledge or a new product. Every discovery you make as an individual is a benefit to others. But you cannot reverse that process. »
[23:53] Le bénéficiaire ultime
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « Validating Egoism Inductively », dans Objectivism Through Induction (séminaire, 1997), leçon 3, enregistrement YouTube [01:25:54] : « The issue is the ultimate beneficiary, not the direct beneficiary… »
  • The Fountainhead (op. cit.), p. 678 : « No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. He held his truth above all things and against all men. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 5 mars 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 539-540 : « Students are the immediate and direct beneficiaries of a teacher’s work, but they are not his goal, and the benefits they gain from him are not the purpose of his life. In an exchange society, in any trade of goods or services, there are direct beneficiaries, but they are not the motivation of the traders. For instance, a doctor’s patients are the beneficiaries of his work, but his goal is not to save their specific lives; his goal is the conquest of disease. In the same way, your students are your beneficiaries, but your purpose (as a rational teacher) is the spread of knowledge. »
  • SALMIERI Gregory, « Egoism and Altruism« , dans SALMIERI & GOTTHELF (dir.), A Companion to Ayn Rand (Chichester / Malden, MA : John Wiley & Sons, 2016), Part II, chap. 6, p. 131 : « Egoistic actions can be contrasted with actions that have other ultimate motivations. Such motives might include: benefiting other people, obeying some authority, or adhering to some principle (other than the principle of pursuing self‐interest). What is at issue here is one’s ultimate motivation for an action. Adhering to principles or benefiting others is egoistic, if someone does these things as a means to (or part of) advancing his self‐interest. Conversely, actions taken with the proximate goal of benefiting oneself are not egoistic if one performs them only in order to benefit others or out of fealty to some authority figure or (non‐egoistic) principle. »
[24:02] L’égoïsme n’est pas un critère moral en soi
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. x : « The Objectivist ethics holds that the actor must always be the beneficiary of his action and that man must act for his own rational self-interest. But his right to do so is derived from his nature as man and from the function of moral values in human life—and, therefore, is applicable only in the context of a rational, objectively demonstrated and validated code of moral principles which define and determine his actual self-interest. It is not a license “to do as he pleases” and it is not applicable to the altruists’ image of a “selfish” brute nor to any man motivated by irrational emotions, feelings, urges, wishes or whims. This is said as a warning against the kind of “Nietzschean egoists” who, in fact, are a product of the altruist morality and represent the other side of the altruist coin: the men who believe that any action, regardless of its nature, is good if it is intended for one’s own benefit. Just as the satisfaction of the irrational desires of others is not a criterion of moral value, neither is the satisfaction of one’s own irrational desires. Morality is not a contest of whims. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 554-555 : « I certainly maintain that an egoist is a man who acts for his own selfinterest and that man should act for his own self-interest. But the concept of “self-interest” identifies only one’s motivation, not the nature of the values that one should choose. The issue, therefore, is: what is the nature of man’s self-interest? Since arbitrary desires, wishes or whims are not a valid standard of value or criterion of self-interest—an egoist has to have a rational standard of value and a rational code of morality in order to be able in fact to achieve his self-interest. […] The “traditional” view of egoism assumes that the standard of value by which one judges the worth of an action is not a principle, not a specific premise, not a defined concept of the “good,” not any objective consideration, but only the beneficiary of an action. It assumes that the beneficiary is an ethical primary and a standard of moral value: if an action, regardless of its nature, is intended to serve your own benefit—you are an egoist (and, traditionally, evil); if an action, regardless of its nature, is intended to serve the benefit of others—you are an altruist (and, traditionally, good). This leads to all the vicious contradictions… »
[24:35] L’égoïsme rationnel
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 31 : « The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—which means: the values required for human survival—not the values produced by the desires, the emotions, the “aspirations,” the feelings, the whims or the needs of irrational brutes, who have never outgrown the primordial practice of human sacrifices, have never discovered an industrial society and can conceive of no self-interest but that of grabbing the loot of the moment. »
  • Night Call (émission radio de Del Shields), « The Philosophy of Ayn Rand« , enregistrée le 12 mars 1969, WRVR Radio Studio, New York City, archive sonore, United Methodist General Commission on Archives & History, [06:05] : « [By selfishness] I mean the pursuit of one’s proper rational self-interest. I mean that the central purpose of one’s life is to achieve one’s own happiness. But as I just stated: not sacrificing oneself nor sacrificing others to oneself. It means to live, in effect, by the judgment of one’s own mind without ever force anything on others and to work, to live, by one’s own productive effort. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 553-554 : « An egoist is a man who acts for his own self-interest. […] Man’s ego is his mind; the most crucial aspect of egoism is the sovereignty of one’s own rational judgment and the right to live by its guidance. Yet this is the aspect which the “traditional” view of egoism ignores and negates: it regards as “egoistic” nothing but the momentary physical satisfactions of a brute. »
[25:13] Neutralité morale du mot égoïsme
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. vii : « [T]he exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests. This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 230 : « The concept of “egoism” identifies merely one aspect of an ethical code. It tells us not what acts a man should take, but who should profit from them. Egoism states that each man’s primary moral obligation is to achieve his own welfare, well-being, or self-interest (these terms are synonyms here). It states that each man should be “concerned with his own interests”; he should be “selfish” in the sense of being the beneficiary of his own moral actions. Taken by itself, this principle offers no practical guidance. It does not specify values or virtues; it does not define “interests” or “self-interest”—neither in terms of “life,” « power,” “pleasure,” nor of anything else. It simply states: whatever man’s proper self-interest consists of, that is what each individual should seek to achieve. »
[25:23] Biais de l’usage populaire du mot « égoïsme »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 553-554 : « Observe that the description you give (the traditional view of egoism) is a description of “Attila”: it assumes that one judges one’s self-interest by the narrowest range of the immediate moment, without any context, without any concern for past or future, for standards, principles, means or ends, without any reasons behind one’s choices, actions or decisions; it assumes that whim is the only standard of value and criterion of self-interest, and that an “egoist” is one who acts on his whims. This is the assumption which I challenge. An egoist is a man who acts for his own self-interest. This does not yet tell us what his self-interest is. On what ground is it then assumed that an egoist does or must judge his self-interest by the arbitrary whim of the moment? On what ground is it assumed that his interests are antagonistic to or incompatible with the interests of others? On what ground is it assumed that human relationships have no personal value to a man and that an egoist has to be indifferent to all other human beings? On what ground is “Attila” supposed to represent the archetype of egoism—and why is “Attila‘s” view of self-interest taken as the view and the essence of self-interest? As you see, the “traditional” concept of egoism is a “loaded,” groundless, unwarranted, unjustifiable package-deal: purporting to define only the basic motivation of a man (self-interest), it then proceeds to prescribe the specific concretes allegedly representing man’s self-interest—and thus substitutes the concrete values of “Attila” for the abstraction “self-interest.” […] The “traditional” view of egoism does not and cannot differentiate between a producer and a looter: both are men acting for and on their respective views of self-interest. »
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. ix : « There is a fundamental moral difference between a man who sees his self-interest in production and a man who sees it in robbery. The evil of a robber does not lie in the fact that he pursues his own interests, but in what he regards as to his own interest; not in the fact that he pursues his values, but in what he chose to value; not in the fact that he wants to live, but in the fact that he wants to live on a subhuman level (see “The Objectivist Ethics”). If it is true that what I mean by “selfishness” is not what is meant conventionally, then this is one of the worst indictments of altruism: it means that altruism permits no concept of a self-respecting, self-supporting man—a man who supports his life by his own effort and neither sacrifices himself nor others. It means that altruism permits no view of men except as sacrificial animals and profiteers-on-sacrifice, as victims and parasites—that it permits no concept of a benevolent co-existence among men—that it permits no concept of justice. »
[26:08] L’altruisme comme propagateur de biais
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. vii : « The ethics of altruism has created the image of the brute, as its answer, in order to make men accept two inhuman tenets: (a) that any concern with one’s own interests is evil, regardless of what these interests might be, and (b) that the brute’s activities are in fact to one’s own interest (which altruism enjoins man to renounce for the sake of his neighbors) »
  • Ibid., p. x : « [Rational selfishness] is not applicable to the altruists’ image of a “selfish” brute… »
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 147 : « [A]ltruists offer you a choice between sadism and masochism: either you torture others or you torture yourself. But it is their metaphysical view of man’s position in the world that has to be challenged here. »
  • BRANDEN Nathaniel, « Counterfeit Individualism », dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 18, p. 135 : « Altruists and collectivists have an obvious vested interest in persuading men that such is the meaning of individualism, that the man who refuses to be sacrificed intends to sacrifice others. »
[26:14] Les biais de l’usage populaire du mot « altruisme »
  • « Faith and Force » (1960), dans Philosophy: Who Needs It (op. cit.), chap. 7, p. 74 : « Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. »
  • « Introducing Objectivism » (émission radio pour WKCR, 1962), enregistrement SoundCloud [21:34] : « When Objectivists say that man is an end in itself and that altruism is evil, it is very important here not to confuse the issue by means of the kind of intellectual package-deal which is always preached and consciously fostered by the altruists. The error which many people make is to believe that “altruism” means kindness, benevolence or good will or respect for the rights of others. But in fact, altruism means the exact opposite. »
  • Séance de questions-réponses dans « The Intellectual Bankruptcy of our Age » (conférence donnée en 1962), enregistrement YouTube [00:51:10] : « What this questioner substitutes for the definition is: every act of altruism defined as the free and voluntary giving of goods and services to one who has not earned them. This is not my definition of altruism, this is not the dictionary definition, this is not the philosophical definition. Therefore what this gentleman here is talking about is act of kindness or courtesy. Under his definition, a Christmas present or a birthday present would be an act of altruism, which would be silly and foolish. It is precisely this kind of package-deal that the altruists use in order to get away with the evil they are perpetrating. Namely the package-deal of attempting to equate every act of kindness, courtesy or generosity as an act of altruism. »
  • Interview d’Ayn Rand pour The Phil Donahue Show (1980), enregistrement YouTube « Ayn Rand Phil Donahue Interview Part 2 of 5 » [00:50] : « To begin with, that’s the big mistake: people can want to help other people properly and with very good reasons. But that isn’t altruism. Altruism doesn’t mean merely helping people. It means sacrificing yourself to others. Placing the interests of others above your own. »
[26:16] Le sens de l’altruisme
  • Séance de questions-réponses dans « The Intellectual Bankruptcy of our Age » (conférence donnée en 1962), enregistrement YouTube [00:51:10] : « “Altruism” is a term originated by the philosopher Auguste Comte and it has been used ever since in the exact meaning that he intented. The word “altruism” comes from the word “alter”, meaning “others”. It implies, and means, and is even given as dictionnary definition, the following: the placing of the interests of others above your own. It means existing for the sake of others. Others are placed above yourself and their interests above your own. That is the meaning of altruism. More specifically, altruism holds that man has no right to live for his own sake, that service to others is the only moral justification of his existence and that self-sacrifice is his highest virtue. »
  • « Faith and Force » (1960), dans Philosophy: Who Needs It (op. cit.), chap. 7, p. 74 : « What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. […] The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good. »
  • COMTE Auguste, Catéchisme positiviste (Garnier Flammarion, 1966, ouvrage original de 1852), Troisième partie, neuvième entretien, p. 223-225 : « Ainsi, le positivisme, en réduisant toute la morale humaine à vivre pour autrui, se borne réellement à systématiser l’instinct universel… […] L’ensemble de l’éducation positive, tant intellectuelle qu’affective, nous rendra profondément familière notre entière dépendance envers l’Humanité, de manière à nous faire dignement sentir notre destination nécessaire à son service continu. […] Sans doute, la belle définition de la vertu, par un moraliste du dix-huitième siècle, comme un effort sur soi-même en faveur des autres, ne cessera jamais d’être applicable. […] On sent alors que le vrai bonheur résulte surtout d’une digne soumission, seule base durable d’une noble et vaste activité. »
  • COMTE Auguste, Introduction à « Système de logique positive » (1856), dans Synthèse subjective (Paris : Fonds typographique de l’exécution testamentaire d’Auguste Comte, 1900), p. 16 : « Une soumission forcée tend à faire indirectement prévaloir l’altruisme par cela seul qu’elle comprime l’égoïsme. »
  • COMTE Auguste, Système de politique positive (vol. 4, Paris : Chez l’auteur / Carilian-Goeury et Victor Dalmont, 1854), chap. 4 « Tableau général de l’existence active », p. 327-328 : « Aucun être ne peut dignement travailler pour lui-même sauf l’Humanité, dont les serviteurs objectifs rapportent à la partie future de son existence subjective les produits qu’ils tirent des matériaux dus à la partie passée. »
[27:18] Subordination de l’intérêt personnel par Auguste Comte
  • COMTE Auguste, Catéchisme positiviste (op. cit.), Troisième partie, neuvième entretien, p. 225-226 : « Seul le positivisme devient à la fois digne et vrai, quand il nous invite à vivre pour autrui. Cette formule définitive de la morale humaine ne consacre directement que les penchants bienveillants, source commune du bonheur et du devoir. Mais elle sanctionne implicitement les instincts personnels, comme conditions nécessaires de notre existence, pourvu qu’ils se subordonnent aux premiers. Sous cette unique réserve, leur satisfaction continue nous est même prescrite, afin de nous bien adapter au service réel de l’Humanité, à laquelle nous appartenons entièrement. »
  • Ibid., p. 27 : « [L’]unité altruiste n’exige point, comme l’unité égoïste, l’entier sacrifice des penchants contraires à son principe, mais seulement leur sage subordination à l’affection prépondérante. En condensant toute la saine morale dans la loi Vivre pour autrui, le positivisme consacre la juste satisfaction permanente des divers instincts personnels, en tant qu’indispensable à notre existence matérielle, sur laquelle reposent toujours nos attributs supérieurs. »
[27:41] Sens du sacrifice
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 150 : « Keep the definition clearly in mind. A sacrifice is the surrender of a greater value to a lesser one, or to a non-value. In other words, you perform a sacrifice when you give up something of great value to you for the sake of something less. The typical example is giving up some value of your own to somebody else who may want it. That is the altruistic form of sacrifice. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1028 : « “Sacrifice” is the surrender of that which you value in favor of that which you don’t. If you exchange a penny for a dollar, it is not a sacrifice; if you exchange a dollar for a penny, it is. If you achieve the career you wanted, after years of struggle, it is not a sacrifice; if you then renounce it for the sake of a rival, it is. If you own a bottle of milk and give it to your starving child, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to your neighbor’s child and let your own die, it is. If you give money to help a friend, it is not a sacrifice; if you give it to a worthless stranger, it is. If you give your friend a sum you can afford, it is not a sacrifice; if you give him money at the cost of your own discomfort, it is only a partial virtue, according to this sort of moral standard; if you give him money at the cost of disaster to yourself— that is the virtue of sacrifice in full. […] A sacrifice is the surrender of a value. Full sacrifice is full surrender of all values. »
  • « Introducing Objectivism » (émission radio pour WKCR, 1962), enregistrement SoundCloud [22:19] : « Most people do not pay sufficient attention to the doctrine of sacrifice or self-sacrifice. And if they accept that concept in some undefined foggy approximate manner, what they think is that they are merely accepting the idea of sacrifice as a temporary means for some better or desirable goal. But that is not what the doctrine of sacrifice means. To begin with, “sacrifice” means the surrender of a higher value to a lesser value. Or the surrender of a value for a non-value. It means the surrender of whichever is valuable to you or important or conducive to your happiness. It means that man has no right to be happy and that he is to treat himself, as well as others, as sacrificial animals. To say that sacrifice is a moral duty is to say that man has no right to exist. »
[27:50] Immoralité de l’altruisme
  • « The Moral Basis of Individualism », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 3 « Transition Between Novels », chap. 8, entrée du 13 juillet 1945, p. 283 : « Altruism is the morality of death and destruction (and it leads to death and destruction in practice) because it holds as desirable the opposite of the qualities needed for man’s survival, the qualities of life. »
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. ix : « Since nature does not provide man with an automatic form of survival, since he has to support his life by his own effort, the doctrine that concern with one’s own interests is evil means that man’s desire to live is evil—that man’s life, as such, is evil. No doctrine could be more evil than that. Yet that is the meaning of altruism… »
  • Lettre à Mme Austin du 29 juillet 1946, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 2 « We the Living to The Fountainhead« , p. 82 : « You cannot claim that altruism is right merely because it is your own choice of what is right, and then believe that this makes it moral. Altruism is profoundly and totally immoral. Neither you nor any philosopher in history has ever been able to defend it on rational grounds. »
  • Lettre à Tom Girdler du 12 juillet 1943, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 295 : « The basic falsehood which the world has accepted is the doctrine that altruism is the ultimate ideal. That is, service to others as a justification and the placing of others above self as a virtue. Such an ideal is not merely impossible, it is immoral and vicious. And there is no hope for the world until enough of us come to realize this. »
[28:05] Incohérence de l’altruisme
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1028 : « You cannot achieve [altruism] so long as you live, but the value of your life and of your person is gauged by how closely you succeed in approaching that ideal zero which is death. »
  • Séance de questions-réponses dans « A Nation’s Unity » (conférence donnée en 1972), enregistrement YouTube [01:05:45] : « [Altruism is] an unspeakable evil. […] It is an impossibility if any naive man attempts voluntarily to practice it. There is no such thing. However it is a great possibility on the part of the executioners, not the victims. For an innocent man or a victim who would like to practice altruism, it is not possible unless he leaps into the first pot where cannibals are cooking a dinner. So long as he lives, he’s not an altruist. But just think of what the receivers of altruistic sacrifice can do. Altruism is the only excuse used, the only justification used by every dictatorship, every tyranny, every despotism. […] Every time you want something immoral, unearned, and belonging to someone else, you try to invoke altruism. And in that way it is very possible. And the sea of blood in history is the best demonstration of it. »
  • « The Cult of Moral Grayness » (1964), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 9, p. 75 : « If a moral code (such as altruism) is, in fact, impossible to practice, it is the code that must be condemned as “black,” not its victims evaluated as “gray.” If a moral code prescribes irreconcilable contradictions—so that by choosing the good in one respect, a man becomes evil in another—it is the code that must be rejected as “black.” If a moral code is inapplicable to reality—if it offers no guidance except a series of arbitrary, groundless, out-of-context injunctions and commandments, to be accepted on faith and practiced automatically, as blind dogma—its practitioners cannot properly be classified as “white” or “black” or “gray”: a moral code that forbids and paralyzes moral judgment is a contradiction in terms. »
  • COMTE Auguste, Catéchisme positiviste (op. cit.), Introduction, premier entretien, p. 64 : « [C]e perfectionnement moral constituera […] toujours le principal objet de l’art humain, dont les efforts continus, individuels et collectifs, nous en rapprochent de plus en plus, sans pouvoir jamais le réaliser complètement. »
[28:48] Conséquences psychologiques de l’altruisme
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 146 : « The basic consequence is a total lack of self-esteem—or as near to total as a man can come and still remain sane and alive. A man who accepts the theory of altruism has to regard himself as being of no value. It is his self-esteem that he has to renounce on every issue, intellectually and spiritually. He must give up the desire to make something of his own life and to achieve happiness. The very idea of looking at oneself as merely a means to the ends of somebody else, whether it’s one other person or the total of mankind, implies a lack of self-esteem. That is what happens at the start. And to the extent that someone attempts to practice altruism, he diminishes his self-esteem more and more. Now, what most people do is abandon morality. They decide that nobody can be perfect, and that they are pursuing their ideal “as best they can.” They tell themselves that that they will not attempt to be consistent altruists, but will feel guilty and will sacrifice to others once in a while. This amoral kind of existence means the destruction of any firm principles of morality and of any firm base of self-esteem. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1033 : « You fear the man who has a dollar less than you, that dollar is rightfully his, he makes you feel like a moral defrauder. You hate the man who has a dollar more than you, that dollar is rightfully yours, he makes you feel that you are morally defrauded. The man below is a source of your guilt, the man above is a source of your frustration. You do not know what to surrender or demand, when to give and when to grab, what pleasure in life is rightfully yours and what debt is still unpaid to others—you struggle to evade, as ‘theory,’ the knowledge that by the moral standard you’ve accepted you are guilty every moment of your life, there is no mouthful of food you swallow that is not needed by someone somewhere on earth—and you give up the problem in blind resentment, you conclude that moral perfection is not to be achieved or desired, that you will muddle through by snatching as snatch can and by avoiding the eyes of the young, of those who look at you as if self-esteem were possible and they expected you to have it. Guilt is all that you retain within your soul—and so does every other man, as he goes past, avoiding your eyes. Do you wonder why your morality has not achieved brotherhood on earth or the good will of man to man? »
  • Introduction de The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), p. ix : « If you wonder about the reasons behind the ugly mixture of cynicism and guilt in which most men spend their lives, these are the reasons: cynicism, because they neither practice nor accept the altruist morality—guilt, because they dare not reject it. »
[29:12] Conséquences pratiques de l’altruisme
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 34 : « Altruism holds death as its ultimate goal and standard of value—and it is logical that renunciation, resignation, self-denial, and every other form of suffering, including self-destruction, are the virtues it advocates. And, logically, these are the only things that the practitioners of altruism have achieved and are achieving now. »
  • The Fountainhead (op. cit.), p. 683 : « Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results. »
  • Lettre à Rose Wilder Lane, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 353 : « In reality, we can see instances of both: men being sacrificed by other men, through brute force (as in any concentration camp or political slaughter) and men sacrificing themselves, of their own volition, because they think it is proper to do so. This last makes the first possible. I am not sure which is the more vicious of the two. It is the idea that self-sacrifice is proper and moral which permits men to sacrifice and butcher others also. »
[29:52] Le rejet de tout sacrifice
  • The Fountainhead (op. cit.), p. 681 : « In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 27 : « The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that just as life is an end in itself, so every living human being is an end in himself, not the means to the ends or the welfare of others—and, therefore, that man must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. »
  • Ibid., p. 31 : « The Objectivist ethics holds that human good does not require human sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone to anyone. »
  • Interview d’Ayn Rand avec Raymond Newman (1980), reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 30, p. 244 : « There was no understanding of a proper, selfish morality—a morality that does not sacrifice you to other men, nor allow you to sacrifice other men to yourself… »
  • Lettre à Rose Wilder Lane, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 353 : « My principle is: No sacrifice (self or others) is proper or even necessary. »
[30:02] Tout le monde n’est pas égoïste
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 146 : « Psychological egoism, that is the theory that since a man has to act, and he cannot act without willing a certain kind of action, anything he does is necessarily selfish because he chose to do it. That is not the standard of selfishness. This merely means a motivated action. But a motivated action is not necessarily a selfish one. A selfish action, in a proper sense of the word is an action consciously aimed at your own rational self-interest. In order to take a selfish action, you have to demonstrate logically why that action suits your own purposes, what it accomplishes for you. That would be properly a selfish action. But a mere desire, the mere fact that you want to do certain action does not yet make it selfish. And most people in fact spend their life taking self-destructive action, which they do want to take… »
  • BRANDEN Nathaniel, « Isn’t Everyone Selfish? » dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 5, p. 60 : « The basic fallacy in the “everyone is selfish” argument consists of an extraordinarily crude equivocation. It is a psychological truism—a tautology—that all purposeful behavior is motivated. But to equate “motivated behavior” with “selfish behavior” is to blank out the distinction between an elementary fact of human psychology and the phenomenon of ethical choice. It is to evade the central problem of ethics, namely: by what is man to be motivated? »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1013 : « [E]ven man’s desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love for life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. […] Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice. »
[31:10] Absence de conflit d’intérêt entre hommes rationnels
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 478 : « I hold that there is no clash of interests among men who do not demand the unearned and do not practice human sacrifices. »
  • Ibid., p. 1022 : « Just as I support my life, neither by robbery nor alms, but by my own effort, so I do not seek to derive my happiness from the injury or the favor of others, but earn it by my own achievement. Just as I do not consider the pleasure of others as the goal of my life, so I do not consider my pleasure as the goal of the lives of others. Just as there are no contradictions in my values and no conflicts among my desires—so there are no victims and no conflicts of interest among rational men, men who do not desire the unearned and do not view one another with a cannibal’s lust, men who neither make sacrifices nor accept them. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 31 : « [The Objectivist ethics] holds that the rational interests of men do not clash—that there is no conflict of interests among men who do not desire the unearned, who do not make sacrifices nor accept them, who deal with one another as traders, giving value for value. »
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 147 : « The rational interests of men do not clash. They cannot be achieved by infringing the rights or sacrificing the interests of anyone. But I underscore rational self-interest, which is not determined by emotions, wishes or whims. »
  • Lettre à Rose Wilder Lane du 3 novembre 1946, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 345 : « Actually, there can be no essential conflict of interests among men, if none demands or expects that which is not his, if each man recognizes that none of the others exists for his sake and that he can demand nothing from them on the ground of his need. »
  • Voir aussi : « The “Conflicts” of Men’s Interests » (1962), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 4, p. 50-56.
[32:05] L’immérité annihile la valeur
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 412 : The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men’s vices or men’s stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment’s or a penny’s worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame.
  • Ibid., p. 798 : « There is no conflict, and no call for sacrifice, and no man is a threat to the aims of another—if men understand that reality is an absolute not to be faked, that lies do not work, that the unearned cannot be had, that the undeserved cannot be given, that the destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn’t. »
  • Ibid., p. 1019 : « Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud—that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality… »
  • Ibid., p. 1038 : « Whenever you rebel against causality, your motive is the fraudulent desire, not to escape it, but worse: to reverse it. You want unearned love, as if love, the effect, could give you personal value, the cause— you want unearned admiration, as if admiration, the effect, could give you virtue, the cause—you want unearned wealth, as if wealth, the effect, could give you ability, the cause—you plead for mercy, mercy, not justice, as if an unearned forgiveness could wipe out the cause of your plea. And to indulge your ugly little shams, you support the doctrines of your teachers, while they run hog-wild proclaiming that spending, the effect, creates riches, the cause, that machinery, the effect, creates intelligence, the cause, that your sexual desires, the effect, create your philosophical values, the cause. »
[32:22] Le sacrifice d’autrui comme contraire à l’égoïsme
  • « Altruism« , interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 147 : « One’s self-interest cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of others. The idea that selfishness consists in sacrificing others is only a psychological confession by the altruists. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 556-557 : « If [a rational man] pursues his rational self-interest, he does not set his values and goals on the spur and range of the moment; therefore, he knows that it is not to his self-interest, it is neither moral nor practical, to rob, cheat, defraud or murder others—and he knows also that he must not seek the unearned, that is: seek to obtain any value produced by or belonging to others, without their voluntary consent and without trading them a value in return. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « The Good », p. 235 : « Egoism, in the Objectivist interpretation, does not mean the policy of violating the rights, moral or political, of others in order to satisfy one’s own needs or desires. It does not mean the policy of a brute, a con man, or a beggar. It does not mean the policy of turning other men, whether by clubs or tears, into one’s servants. Any such policy, as we will see in due course, is destructive not only to the victim, but also to the perpetrator. It is condemned as immoral, therefore, by the very principle of selfishness. »
  • The Fountainhead (op. cit.), p. 682 : « A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander. »
[32:58] Principe des hommes qui échangent
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 31 : « The principle of trade is the only rational ethical principle for all human relationships, personal and social, private and public, spiritual and material. It is the principle of justice. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. He does not treat men as masters or slaves, but as independent equals. He deals with men by means of a free, voluntary, unforced, uncoerced exchange—an exchange which benefits both parties by their own independent judgment. A trader does not expect to be paid for his defaults, only for his achievements. He does not switch to others the burden of his failures, and he does not mortgage his life into bondage to the failures of others. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1022 : « The symbol of all relationships among [rational] men, the moral symbol of respect for human beings, is the trader. We, who live by values, not by loot, are traders, both in matter and in spirit. A trader is a man who earns what he gets and does not give or take the undeserved. A trader does not ask to be paid for his failures, nor does he ask to be loved for his flaws. A trader does not squander his body as fodder or his soul as alms. Just as he does not give his work except in trade for material values, so he does not give the values of his spirit—his love, his friendship, his esteem—except in payment and in trade for human virtues, in payment for his own selfish pleasure, which he receives from men he can respect. The mystic parasites who have, throughout the ages, reviled the traders and held them in contempt, while honoring the beggars and the looters, have known the secret motive of their sneers: a trader is the entity they dread—a man of justice. »
[33:26] L’amour et l’amitié ne sont pas désintéressés
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 31-32 : « Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. »
  • « The Ethics of Emergencies« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 44 : « Love and friendship are profoundly personal, selfish values: love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one’s own values in the person of another. One gains a profoundly personal, selfish joy from the mere existence of the person one loves. It is one’s own personal, selfish happiness that one seeks, earns and derives from love. »
  • Interview d’Ayn Rand pour Playboy, mars 1964 : « When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. […] Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person. »
  • Lettre à Joanne Rondeau du 22 mai 1948, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 396 : « The usual (and very vicious) nonsense preached on the subject of love claims that love is self-sacrifice. A man’s self is his spirit. If one sacrifices his spirit, who or what is left to feel the love? True love is profoundly selfish, in the noblest meaning of the word—it is an expression of one’s self, of one’s highest values. When a person is in love, he seeks his own happiness—and not his sacrifice to the loved one. And the loved one would be a monster if she wanted or expected sacrifice. »
[33:41] L’aide à autrui
  • Day at Night, 29 mars 1974 [06:30] : « When you want to help someone else, it is proper, it’s not evil, provided you do it on the base of his value. Because he’s a good person who suffers through no fault of his own, because he’s a friend of yours, because he’s a victim of injustice. Those are all helping values. But if you grant a man charity on the ground of his flaws, not his accidental misfortune, but a misfortune brought about by his own evil, then that kind of help I do regard as evil. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1060 : « If you choose to help a man who suffers, do it only on the ground of his virtues, of his fight to recover, of his rational record, or of the fact that he suffers unjustly; then your action is still a trade, and his virtue is the payment for your help. But to help a man who has no virtues, to help him on the ground of his suffering as such, to accept his faults, his need, as a claim—is to accept the mortgage of a zero on your values. A man who has no virtues is a hater of existence who acts on the premise of death; to help him is to sanction his evil and to support his career of destruction. Be it only a penny you will not miss or a kindly smile he has not earned, a tribute to a zero is treason to life and to all those who struggle to maintain it. It is of such pennies and smiles that the desolation of your world was made. »
  • « The Question of Scholarships« , dans The Voice of Reason (op. cit.) chap. 7, p. 41 : « To view the question in its proper perspective, one must begin by rejecting altruism’s terms and all of its ugly emotional aftertaste—then take a fresh look at human relationships. It is morally proper to accept help, when it is offered not as a moral duty, but as an act of good will and generosity, when the giver can afford it (i.e., when it does not involve self-sacrifice on his part), and when it is offered in response to the receiver’s virtues, not in response to his flaws, weaknesses, or moral failures, and not on the ground of his need as such. »
[34:35] Base égoïste du respect de la vie humaine
  • « The Ethics of Emergencies« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 46-47 : « A rational man does not forget that life is the source of all values and, as such, a common bond among living beings (as against inanimate matter), that other men are potentially able to achieve the same virtues as his own and thus be of enormous value to him. This does not mean that he regards human lives as interchangeable with his own. He recognizes the fact that his own life is the source, not only of all his values, but of his capacity to value. Therefore, the value he grants to others is only a consequence, an extension, a secondary projection of the primary value which is himself. “The respect and good will that men of self-esteem feel toward other human beings is profoundly egoistic; they feel, in effect: ‘Other men are of value because they are of the same species as myself.’ In revering living entities, they are revering their own life. This is the psychological base of any emotion of sympathy and any feeling of ‘species solidarity.’ ” Since men are born tabula rasa, both cognitively and morally, a rational man regards strangers as innocent until proved guilty, and grants them that initial good will in the name of their human potential. […] It is on the ground of that generalized good will and respect for the value of human life that one helps strangers in an emergency—and only in an emergency. »
  • BRANDEN Nathaniel, « Counterfeit Individualism », dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 18, p. 135 : « [S]ince the only rational base of individualism as an ethical principle is the requirements of man’s survival qua man, one man cannot claim the moral right to violate the rights of another. If he denies inviolate rights to other men, he cannot claim such rights for himself; he has rejected the base of rights. No one can claim the moral right to a contradiction. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 556 : « A rational man has to recognize […] that the value he attaches to his own life and his objective right to it are based on the nature of life in general and of human life in particular; therefore, if he values his own life, he has to recognize the right of all other human beings to value their own lives in the same way, for the same reasons and on the same terms. If he holds the support of his own life by his own effort and the achievement of his own happiness as his primary goal, he has to grant the same right to others; if he does not grant it, he is guilty of a contradiction and cannot claim any rational validity for his own right. If he recognizes that living among other men (in a free society) is to his self-interest, he cannot be blindly indifferent to other men or “refuse to lift a finger to save a human life.”’ It is his self-esteem and his self-interest that are the root of his benevolence toward others. »
[35:54] Les urgences ne peuvent pas fonder une éthique
  • « The Ethics of Emergencies« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 47 : « It is important to differentiate between the rules of conduct in an emergency situation and the rules of conduct in the normal conditions of human existence. This does not mean a double standard of morality: the standard and the basic principles remain the same, but their application to either case requires precise definitions. An emergency is an unchosen, unexpected event, limited in time, that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible—such as a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a shipwreck. […] By its nature, an emergency situation is temporary; if it were to last, men would perish. »
  • Ibid., p. 48 : »In the normal conditions of existence, man has to choose his goals, project them in time, pursue them and achieve them by his own effort. He cannot do it if his goals are at the mercy of and must be sacrificed to any misfortune happening to others. He cannot live his life by the guidance of rules applicable only to conditions under which human survival is impossible. »
  • Ibid., p. 43 : « And, in fact, a lethargic indifference to ethics, a hopelessly cynical amorality—since his questions involve situations which he is not likely ever to encounter, which bear no relation to the actual problems of his own life and thus leave him to live without any moral principles whatever. »
  • Voir aussi : « How Ethics Can Guide Our Lives, Not Just Resolve Dilemmas » et « Why the Red/Blue Button Moral Dilemma is a Trap » sur la chaîne YouTube du Ayn Rand Institute.
[36:19] L’erreur d’interprétation subjectiviste
  • « The Ethics of Objectivism », interview pour WKCR, reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 22, p. 161 : »Egoism does not mean subjectivism, or what I call whim-worship. It does not mean that man has the right to take his whims as his standard of value. It does not mean that anything he desires to do is right just because he desires it. The subjectivist, or hedonist, approach to morality is precisely what Objectivism rejects. »
  • Ibid., p. 161-162 : « If egoism means “acting for your own interest,” I challenge the idea that following blind whims and emotional, causeless preferences is to your self-interest. No one could ever validate that as a moral principle. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 554 : « The “traditional” concept of egoism assumes that an egoist’s standard is: “My self-interest consists of doing whatever happens to please me.” A drunkard, a drug addict, a hot-rod car driver are men who act on that standard; they could hardly be regarded as exponents of self-interest. A self-destroying, whim-worshipping neurotic is not a representative of the ego; in actual fact, he has neither self nor interests—and it is certainly not self-interest that-he pursues or achieves. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 234 : « Unfortunately, for a reason I shall soon indicate, egoism has been advocated through the centuries mainly by subjectivists. The result is several corrupt versions of egoism, which most people now regard as the self-evident meaning of the concept. So I must keep stressing the fact that Objectivism upholds objectivity and therefore rejects all these versions. We reject the idea that egoism permits the evasion of principles. We reject the equation of egoism with irresponsibility, context-dropping, or whimworship. We reject the notion that selfishness means “doing whatever you feel like doing.” The fact that you feel like taking some action does not necessarily make it an action compatible with your “interests,” in the legitimate sense of that term. There are countless examples of people who desire and pursue self-destructive courses of behavior »
[36:53] L’erreur d’interprétation hédoniste
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 29-30 : « This is the fallacy inherent in hedonism—in any variant of ethical hedonism, personal or social, individual or collective. “Happiness” can properly be the purpose of ethics, but not the standard. The task of ethics is to define man’s proper code of values and thus to give him the means of achieving happiness. To declare, as the ethical hedonists do, that “the proper value is whatever gives you pleasure” is to declare that “the proper value is whatever you happen to value”—which is an act of intellectual and philosophical abdication, an act which merely proclaims the futility of ethics and invites all men to play it deuces wild. »

Une éthique causale

[37:06] L’erreur d’interprétation de l’obéissance
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1018 : « [A] “moral commandment” is a contradiction in terms. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments. »
  • Anthem (New York: Signet Books, 1946), p. 108-109 : « I wished to find a warrant for being. I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction. »
  • « The Moral Basis of Individualism », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 3 « Transition Between Novels », chap. 8, entrée du 22 juillet 1945, p. 295 : « The essence of morality is to desire that which is good. »
  • « Applying Philosophy Without Preaching It » (1969) dans The Art of NonFiction (New York: Plume / Penguin Putnam, 2001), chap. 4, p. 29-30 : « Unfortunately, many Objectivists have not fully accepted, concretized, and integrated this principle. For example, in the presence of a given event, work of art, person, etc., too many Objectivists ask themselves, “What do I have to feel?” instead of, “What do I feel?” And if they need to judge a situation which I have not discussed before, their approach is, “What should I think?” instead of, “What do I think?” This is the childhood remnant of anyone who to some extent was influenced either by the religion of the culture or, later in college, by Platonism. […] If any part of this attitude remains in you, it is important to eliminate it. »
  • « Theme and Characters » dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 2 « The Fountainhead« , chap. 4, entrée du 4 décembre 1935, p. 78-79 : « [A] man who does not consider his values as his, but merely as prescribed to him, or who acts virtuously because he has to, not because he wants to—that man can hardly be considered virtuous or ethical. The man to whom virtue, or that which he considers virtue, is a necessity, not a painful duty, is the truly ethical man. »
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, Egoism Without Permission (Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024).
[39:33] Le rejet du devoir
  • « Causality versus Duty » (1970), dans Philosophy: Who Needs It (op. cit.), chap. 10, p. 114-115 : « One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term “duty.” […] It is obvious that that anti-concept is a product of mysticism, not an abstraction derived from reality. In a mystic theory of ethics, “duty” stands for the notion that man must obey the dictates of a supernatural authority. Even though the anti-concept has been secularized, and the authority of God’s will has been ascribed to earthly entities, such as parents, country, State, mankind, etc., their alleged supremacy still rests on nothing but a mystic edict. Who in hell can have the right to claim that sort of submission or obedience? This is the only proper form—and locality—for the question, because nothing and no one can have such a right or claim here on earth.
  • Ibid., p. 118 : « In reality and in the Objectivist ethics, there is no such thing as “duty.” There is only choice and the full, clear recognition of a principle obscured by the notion of “duty”: the Law of Causality. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1053 : « Morality, to you, is a phantom scarecrow made of duty, of boredom, of punishment, of pain, a cross-breed between the first schoolteacher of your past and the tax collector of your present, a scarecrow standing in a barren field, waving a stick to chase away your pleasures —and pleasure, to you, is a liquor-soggy brain, a mindless slut, the stupor of a moron who stakes his cash on some animal’s race, since pleasure cannot be moral. »
  • « For the New Intellectual » (1961), dans For the New Intellectual (New York, Signet / New American Library, 1963), p. 27 : « As to Kant’s version of morality, it was appropriate to the kind of zombies that would inhabit that kind of universe: it consisted of total, abject selflessness. An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual; a benefit destroys the moral value of an action. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « Philosophy Loses Confidence » (1972), dans Founders of Western Philosophy (op. cit.), Lecture 6 : « A duty-morality is essentially any morality that separates virtues from values, or actions from rewards. And it is, of course, the antithesis of the Objectivist approach to morality. »
[40:52] La fin ne justifie pas les moyens
  • « The Goal of my Writings » (1963), dans The Romantic Manifesto (op. cit.), chap. 11, p. 159 : « The end does not justify the means—neither in ethics nor in esthetics. »
  • Séance de questions-réponses dans « The Age of Mediocrity » (conférence donnée en 1981), enregistrement YouTube [00:55:30] : « I hope I have written enough to make it clear that I do not believe in the filthy slogan of “the end justifies the means”. That, I believe, was originated by the Jesuits, and accepted enthusiastically by the Communists and the Nazis. The end does not justify the means. You cannot achieve anything good by evil means. »
[40:57] L’action comme constitutive de la moralité
  • GOTTHELF Allan, « The Morality of Life« , dans SALMIERI & GOTTHELF (dir.), A Companion to Ayn Rand (op. cit.), Part II, chap. 4, p. 81 : « Since the fundamental means by which a life is sustained are themselves part of that life, Rand thinks that, in addition to being the means to life and happiness, the values and virtues of the Objectivist ethics are also essential constituents of a successful and happy life. This is why, in “The Objectivist Ethics,” Rand describes “the three cardinal values” of reason, purpose, and self‐esteem as “the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life”. There is an important sense, then, in which these values are part of the ultimate end, which is one’s life. »
  • SMITH Tara, « Egoistic Relations with Others », dans Metaethics, Egoism and Virtue (op. cit.), partie « Author Meets Critics », p. 128 : « Life is a series of actions. Rand observes that human beings can survive only by making those actions life-sustaining—i.e., by acting to achieve objective (life-furthering) values. But because life is a series of actions, the values that sustain a life themselves constitute that life. »
  • SALMIERI Gregory, « Egoism and Altruism« , dans Ibid., chap. 6, p. 134 : « Because life is “a process of self‐sustaining and self‐generated action”, the life which is one’s ultimate value is not a self‐contained end that can be separated from the actions by which one sustains oneself… […] Rand was not a consequentialist. On her view, an individual’s welfare is not something that can be separated from his actions and evaluated apart from them. It consists, rather, in his own rational achievement of a self-sustaining life. »
  • Voir aussi sur ce blog : « Déontologie ou conséquentialisme ?« 
[41:51] Citation de Rand sur la conditionnalité morale
  • « Causality versus Duty » (1970), dans Philosophy: Who Needs It (op. cit.), chap. 10, p. 118-119 : « Reality confronts man with a great many “musts,” but all of them are conditional; the formula of realistic necessity is: “You must, if—” and the “if” stands for man’s choice: “—if you want to achieve a certain goal.” You must eat, if you want to survive. You must work, if you want to eat. You must think, if you want to work. You must look at reality, if you want to think—if you want to know what to do—if you want to know what goals to choose—if you want to know how to achieve them. »
[42:37] Pas d’opposition entre le moral et le pratique
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1053 : « No matter what dishonorable compromise you’ve made with your impracticable creed, no matter what miserable balance, half-cynicism, half-superstition, you now manage to maintain, you still preserve the root, the lethal tenet: the belief that the moral and the practical are opposites. Since childhood, you have been running from the terror of a choice you have never dared fully to identify: If the practical, whatever you must practice to exist, whatever works, succeeds, achieves your purpose, whatever brings you food and joy, whatever profits you, is evil—and if the good, the moral, is the impractical, whatever fails, destroys, frustrates, whatever injures you and brings you loss or pain— then your choice is to be moral or to live. »
  • Lettre à Rose Wilder Lane, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 6 « The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged Years », p. 355 : « In this sense, the moral is the practical. In this sense, it is based on the reality and conditions of man’s existence here, now, on earth. »

Les vertus

[43:34] Ce qu’est une vertu
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 31 : « Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep—virtue is the act by which one gains and/or keeps it. »
[43:57] La vertu n’est pas une fin en soi
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1021 : « Virtue is not an end in itself. Virtue is not its own reward or sacrificial fodder for the reward of evil. Life is the reward of virtue—and happiness is the goal and the reward of life. »
  • « Focus on Youth« , interview d’Ayn Rand reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 29, p. 234-235 : « If man were rewarded only from within himself and did not get any reward from the outside world which was voluntarily dealing with him, he would be living in a Kantian-Christian world. It would be a world in which virtue is its own reward. I have never advocated that, and never will. I say the exact opposite: virtue is the only way properly to acquire outside, material rewards. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « Why Should One Act on Principle? » (1988), dans Why Act on Principle? (Santa Ana, CA: Ayn Rand Institute Press, 2024), chap. 1 : « Moral principles are not ends in themselves; they are means to an end. They are not spiritual luxuries reserved for “higher” souls, or duties owed to God or heaven. They are a practical, earthly necessity to anyone concerned with self-preservation. »
  • GOTTHELF Allan, « The Morality of Life« , dans dans SALMIERI & GOTTHELF (dir.), A Companion to Ayn Rand (op. cit.), Part II, chap. 4, p. 92 : « [T]he status of the virtues as constituents of life derives from their status as means to the cardinal values of reason, purpose, and self‐esteem, and to the wider range of values that we have seen man’s life requires. Thus Rand’s moral philosophy is properly understood not as a virtue ethics, but as a value ethics. To treat virtue as one’s fundamental moral concept, would be to say that a certain way of acting (and/or the psychological states that give rise to it) is good apart from its relation to the individual’s life, and that he could (in principle) be called to sacrifice his life to the demands of virtue. On Rand’s view, by contrast, virtue is a selfish necessity, because one’s life depends on it. »
[44:06] Différence avec l’“éthique de la vertu”
  • SMITH Tara, « The Master Virtue: Rationality« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 49 : « Nearly all [conventional philosophical characterizations] depict a virtue as a quality of a person rather than as an action or a recognition. Thinkers from Homer and Aristotle through today’s moral philosophers predominantly portray virtue as a trait of character. […] They are nearly unanimous […] in considering virtue itself a disposition and thus a feature of a person. Rand’s account is not as exceptional as it may initially appear, however. Its emphasis on action stems from her understanding of the entirely practical mission of morality. Irrevocable facts about human beings’ nature, needs and environment demand certain actions, if we are to meet our needs. »
  • BAYER BEN « Comments on “Aristotle and Ayn Rand on the Unity of Virtue,” by Neera K. Badhwar« , dans Two Philosophers: Aristotle and Ayn Rand (Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025), chap. 11 : « On the one hand, Rand defines “virtue” as “the action by which one gains and keeps” values, which is in contrast to the virtue ethicists’ focus on virtues as character traits. […] In Rand’s view, the most basic use of “virtue” for ethics is as an action, because it is actions that are directly chosen for which we need guidance. Understanding a particular virtue as a character trait, like the virtue of justice, requires understanding the more basic sense of virtue as an action: to possess the virtue of justice is to regularly and as a matter of disposition act justly. What’s more, to acquire that disposition in the first place one must also act justly to habituate the disposition. »
  • GOTTHELF Allan, « The Morality of Life« , dans dans SALMIERI & GOTTHELF (dir.), A Companion to Ayn Rand (op. cit.), Part II, chap. 4, p. 91-92 : « [M]any “virtue ethicists” […] take virtue (or having a good character) to be the fundamental moral concept. On this view, being virtuous or acting virtuously is good in itself […] It should be clear that Rand does not side with such virtue ethicists on these issues. »
[44:58] Vertus correspondantes aux valeurs cardinales
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 25 : « The three cardinal values of the Objectivist ethics—the three values which, together, are the means to and the realization of one’s ultimate value, one’s own life—are: Reason, Purpose, Self-Esteem, with their three corresponding virtues: Rationality, Productiveness, Pride. »
[46:05] Une liste non exhaustive
  • Interview d’Ayn Rand avec Raymond Newman (1980), reproduite dans PODRITSKE Marlene et SCHWARTZ Peter (éd.) Objectively Speaking (op. cit.), chap. 30, p. 246 : « For what I classify as moral or immoral, I refer you to Galt’s speech in Atlas Shrugged or to “The Objectivist Ethics” in The Virtue of Selfishness. There you will see a short list of the virtues and the vices under Objectivism. It’s not an exhaustive list, but at least it gives you the essentials. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 251 : « In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand defines six major derivatives of the virtue of rationality. That is the account I am following. Miss Rand did not regard this list as necessarily exhaustive or the order of its items as logically mandatory. Her concern was not to cover every application of virtue, but to identify the essentials of rationality in the most important areas and aspects of human life. »
[46:09] Caractéristiques des vertus
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1018 : « [A]ll his virtues pertain to the relation of existence and consciousness: rationality, independence, integrity, honesty, justice, productiveness, pride. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 250-251 : « Since these virtues are expressions of rationality, they are logically interconnected, both in theory and in practice. None can be validated in isolation, apart from the others; nor can a man practice any one of them consistently while defaulting on the others. In defining a series of virtues, Ayn Rand is abstracting, separating out for purposes of specialized study elements of a single whole. What she seeks to clarify by this means, however, is the whole. The Objectivist ethics upholds not disconnected rules, but an integrated way of life, every aspect of which entails all the others. The essence of this way of life, as we know, involves a certain relationship between man’s consciousness and reality. […] In Ayn Rand’s philosophy, virtue consists of allegiance to existence; it consists of a man’s recognizing facts and then acting accordingly. The virtues are differentiated from one another according to the particular metaphysically given facts they identify. »
  • GOTTHELF Allan, « The Morality of Life« , dans SALMIERI & GOTTHELF (dir.), A Companion to Ayn Rand (op. cit.), Part II, chap. 4, p. 91 : « Each of Rand’s virtues is a recognition of a fact about how one’s consciousness has to relate to existence in order for one to live. For an action to be virtuous is for it to be guided by such a recognition. »
[46:24] La vertu de rationalité
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 25 : « Rationality is man’s basic virtue, the source of all his other virtues. […] The virtue of Rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide to action. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1018 : « Rationality is the recognition of the fact that existence exists, that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it, which is thinking—that the mind is one’s only judge of values and one’s only guide of action—that reason is an absolute that permits no compromise—that a concession to the irrational invalidates one’s consciousness and turns it from the task of perceiving to the task of faking reality—that the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind—that the acceptance of a mystical invention is a wish for the annihilation of existence and, properly, annihilates one’s consciousness. »
  • Voir aussi : PEIKOFF Leonard, « Rationality as the Primary Virtue », dans Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 7 « The Good », p. 220-229.
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, « The Master Virtue: Rationality« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 3, p. 48-74.
[47:06] La vertu d’indépendance
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 26 : « It means one’s acceptance of the responsibility of forming one’s own judgments and of living by the work of one’s own mind. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1019 : « Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it—that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life— that the vilest form of self-abasement and self-destruction is the subordination of your mind to the mind of another, the acceptance of an authority over your brain, the acceptance of his assertions as facts, his say-so as truth, his edicts as middle-man between your consciousness and your existence. »
  • Voir aussi : PEIKOFF Leonard, « Independence as a primary orientation to reality, not to other men », dans Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 251-259 ; « The Virtue of Independence » dans Moral Virtue (série de conférences, 1989).
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, « Independance« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 5, p. 106-134.
  • Voir aussi sur ce blog : « Les racines métaphysiques et épistémologiques de la vertu d’indépendance« .
[47:45] La vertu d’intégrité
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1019 : « Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence—that man is an indivisible entity, an integrated unit of two attributes: of matter and consciousness, and that he may permit no breach between body and mind, between action and thought, between his life and his convictions—that, like a judge impervious to public opinion, he may not sacrifice his convictions to the wishes of others, be it the whole of mankind shouting pleas or threats against him—that courage and confidence are practical necessities, that courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to truth, and confidence is the practical form of being true to one’s own consciousness. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 26 : « It means that one must never sacrifice one’s convictions to the opinions or wishes of others (which is the virtue of Integrity) »
  • Voir aussi : PEIKOFF Leonard, « Integrity as Loyalty to Rational Principles », dans Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 259-267.
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, « Integrity« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 7, p. 176-197.
[48:20] La vertu d’honnêteté
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1019 : « Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud—that an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee—that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling—that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others. »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 26 : « [O]ne must never attempt to fake reality in any manner (which is the virtue of Honesty) »
  • Voir aussi : PEIKOFF Leonard, « Honesty as the Rejection of Unreality », dans Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 267-276.
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, « Honesty« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 4, p. 75-105.
[49:00] La vertu de justice
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 26 : « [O]ne must never seek or grant the unearned and undeserved, neither in matter nor in spirit (which is the virtue of Justice) »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1019-1020 : « Justice is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification—that every man must be judged for what he is and treated accordingly, that just as you do not pay a higher price for a rusty chunk of scrap than for a piece of shining metal, so you do not value a rotter above a hero—that your moral appraisal is the coin paying men for their virtues or vices, and this payment demands of you as scrupulous an honor as you bring to financial transactions—that to withhold your contempt from men’s vices is an act of moral counterfeiting, and to withhold your admiration from their virtues is an act of moral embezzlement—that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil, since only the good can lose by a default of justice and only the evil can profit—and that the bottom of the pit at the end of that road, the act of moral bankruptcy, is to punish men for their virtues and reward them for their vices, that that is the collapse to full depravity, the Black Mass of the worship of death, the dedication of your consciousness to the destruction of existence. »
  • Voir aussi : PEIKOFF Leonard, « Justice as Rationality in the Evaluation of Men », dans Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 276-292 ; « The Virtue of Justice » dans Moral Virtue (série de conférences, 1989).
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, « Justice« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 6, p. 135-175.
[49:40] La vertu de productivité
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 26 : « The virtue of Productiveness is the recognition of the fact that productive work is the process by which man’s mind sustains his life, the process that sets man free of the necessity to adjust himself to his background, as all animals do, and gives him the power to adjust his background to himself. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1020 : « Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live—that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values—that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others—that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human—that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fearcorroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay—that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live—that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road—that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up—that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction. »
  • Voir aussi : PEIKOFF Leonard, « Productiveness as the Adjustment of Nature to Man », dans Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 292-303.
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, « Productiveness« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 8, p. 135-175.
[50:17] La vertu de fierté
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 27 : « The virtue of Pride is the recognition of the fact “that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul.” (Atlas Shrugged.) The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: “moral ambitiousness.” It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest value by achieving one’s own moral perfection—which one achieves by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational—by never accepting an unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1020-1021 : Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned—that of any achievements open to you, the one that makes all others possible is the creation of your own character—that your character, your actions, your desires, your emotions are the products of the premises held by your mind—that as man must produce the physical values he needs to sustain his life, so he must acquire the values of character that make his life worth sustaining—that as man is a being of self-made wealth, so he is a being of self-made soul—that to live requires a sense of self-value, but man, who has no automatic values, has no automatic sense of self-esteem and must earn it by shaping his soul in the image of his moral ideal, in the image of Man, the rational being he is born able to create, but must create by choice—that the first precondition of self-esteem is that radiant selfishness of soul which desires the best in all things, in values of matter and spirit, a soul that seeks above all else to achieve its own moral perfection, valuing nothing higher than itself—and that the proof of an achieved self-esteem is your soul’s shudder of contempt and rebellion against the role of a sacrificial animal, against the vile impertinence of any creed that proposes to immolate the irreplaceable value which is your consciousness and the incomparable glory which is your existence to the blind evasions and the stagnant decay of others.
  • Voir aussi : PEIKOFF Leonard, « Pride as Moral Ambitiousness », dans Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 303-310.
  • Voir aussi : SMITH Tara, « Pride« , dans Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (op. cit.), chap. 9, p. 221-246.
[51:04] L’impuissance du mal
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1024 : « Evil, not value, is an absence and a negation, evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us. »
  • Ibid., p. 1048 : « I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality—and that my sanction was its only power. I saw that evil was impotent—that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real—and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it. Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on my self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan—so throughout the world and throughout men’s history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values—the impotence of death. I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. »
  • Lettre à John Hospers du 29 avril 1961, dans BERLINER Michael S. (éd.), Letters of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), chap. 7 « Letters to a philosopher », p. 562 : « I do not attach any importance to negatives: evil is impotent. […] When evil wins in the world, it is only by the default of the good. »
[51:40] Le vice fondamental
  • « Notes While Writing: 1947-1952 », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 4 « Atlas Shrugged« , chap. 13, entrée du 8 mars 1947, p. 559 : « This is the essence of the only evil act man can really do—that act of shutting off his conscious rational judgment, which is not automatic. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1017 : « Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” »
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 25 : « Man’s basic vice, the source of all his evils, is the act of unfocusing his mind, the suspension of his consciousness, which is not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance, but the refusal to know. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 2 « Sense Perception and Volition », p. 62 : « The process of evasion, as we will see, is profoundly destructive. Epistemologically, it invalidates a mental process. Morally, it is the essence of evil. According to Objectivism, evasion is the vice that underlies all other vices. »

L’absolutisme moral

[52:40] La pensée « en noir et blanc »
  • « The Cult of Moral Grayness » (1964), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 9, p. 75 : « One of the most eloquent symptoms of the moral bankruptcy of today’s culture, is a certain fashionable attitude toward moral issues, best summarized as: “There are no blacks and whites, there are only grays.” This is asserted in regard to persons, actions, principles of conduct, and morality in general. “Black and white,” in this context, means “good and evil.” […] In any respect one cares to examine, that notion is full of contradictions (foremost among them is the fallacy of “the stolen concept”). If there is no black and white, there can be no gray—since gray is merely a mixture of the two. »
  • Ibid., p. 79 : « [W]hen one is asked: “Surely you don’t think in terms of black-and-white, do you?”—the proper answer (in essence, if not in form) should be: “You’re damn right I do!” »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 266 : « The power of the good is enormous, but depends on its consistency. That is why the good has to be an issue of “all or nothing,” “black or white,” and why evil has to be partial, occasional, “gray.” Observe that a “liar » in common parlance is not a man who always, conscientiously, tells falsehoods; there is no such creature; for the term to apply to a person, a few whoppers on his part is enough. Just as a “hypocrite” is not a man who scrupulously betrays every idea he holds. Just as a “burglar” is not a man who steals every item of property he sees. Just as a person is a “killer” if he respects human life 99.9 per cent of the time and hires himself out to the Mafia as an executioner only now and then. To be evil « only sometimes » is to be evil. To be good is to be good all of the time, i.e., as a matter of consistent, unbreached principle. »
[53:26] La perfection morale
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1028 : « You are told that moral perfection is impossible to man—and, by this standard, it is. »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1059 : « Discard that unlimited license to evil which consists of claiming that man is imperfect. By what standard do you damn him when you claim it? Accept the fact that in the realm of morality nothing less than perfection will do. But perfection is not to be gauged by mystic commandments to practice the impossible, and your moral stature is not to be gauged by matters not open to your choice. Man has a single basic choice: to think or not, and that is the gauge of his virtue. Moral perfection is an unbreached rationality—not the degree of your intelligence, but the full and relentless use of your mind, not the extent of your knowledge, but the acceptance of reason as an absolute. »
  • « Notes While Writing: 1947-1952 », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 4 « Atlas Shrugged« , chap. 13, entrée du 27 août 1950, p. 627 : « Have you ever wondered why the peddlers of the cannibal morality lay such a stress on imperfection? They are careful to make men think that the mere desire for perfection is evil, that it is a sin, the sin of pride. Why? Because this holds the whole secret of their moral code. It is the code of destruction—which cannot be practiced fully, or mankind would perish. But in that ghastly agony of the just-about, the approximation, through which they have dragged mankind for centuries, lies the only advantage they hope to achieve. If the man of virtue does not expect perfection, he will put up with undeserved pain. If the evil man does not expect perfection, he will escape the full punishment which he deserves, he will get the unearned, he will get—in spirit and in matter, in moral honor and in physical wealth—the rewards of the man of virtue, while that man of virtue will bear the evil-doer’s punishment. That is the whole heart of the “morality of imperfection.” »
[55:42] La possibilité d’expiation
  • « The Objectivist Ethics » (1961), dans The Virtue of Selfishness (op. cit.), chap. 1, p. 24 : « [Man] can alter his choices, he is free to change the direction of his course, he is even free, in many cases, to atone for the consequences of his past… »
  • Ibid., p. 27 : « [I]f one has earned [guilt], never leaving it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. »
  • « Notes While Writing: 1947-1952 », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 4 « Atlas Shrugged« , chap. 13, entrée du 8 mars 1947, p. 559 : « After this act of original, initial evil, a man [may] proceed to perpetuate that evil, to become an irrationalist—in order not to face his own judgment on himself, since no man can pronounce himself absolutely and irrevocably evil, and continue to exist. Is the way to morality and self-respect open to him? Yes—always—so long as he is alive and sane. But the only way is return to a conscious [policy] of rationality, to his own essence and nature as man, to himself. »
    PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 289 : « Forgiveness in moral issues is earned, if the guilty party makes restitution to his victim, assuming this is applicable; and then demonstrates objectively, through word and deed, that he understands the roots of his moral breach, has reformed his character, and will not commit such wrong again. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (op. cit.),  chap. 8 « Virtue », p. 305 : « If, however, in a moment of weakness he does earn some moral guilt, he acts decisively to clean the slate and restore his moral purity. He condemns his improper behavior, analyzes its roots (identifying in the process the underlying evasions), makes reparation (where applicable), and works to reshape his mental policy; he thereby retrains his character for the future. »
[56:11] L’erreur de connaissance
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1059 : « Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality. An error of knowledge is not a moral flaw, provided you are willing to correct it; only a mystic would judge human beings by the standard of an impossible, automatic omniscience. […] That which you do not know, is not a moral charge against you; but that which you refuse to know, is an account of infamy growing in your soul. Make every allowance for errors of knowledge; do not forgive or accept any breach of morality. »
  • « Notes While Writing: 1947-1952 », dans Journals of Ayn Rand (op. cit.), part. 4 « Atlas Shrugged« , chap. 13, entrée du 31 juillet 1950, p. 626 : « The difference between an error of knowledge and a moral error is that in the first case, a man does not suspend his consciousness (his reason), he is exercising it fully and he merely lacks all the necessary information; in the second case, he acts against his reason, he does not want to know and, therefore, he is guilty of the basic, cardinal sin… »
[56:40] Nécessité des principes
  • « The Anatomy of Compromise » (1964), dans Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (op. cit.), chap. 14, p. 144 : « The manifestation of a disintegrating consciousness is the inability to think and act in terms of principles. […] It is only by means of principles that one can set one’s long-range goals and evaluate the concrete alternatives of any given moment. It is only principles that enable a man to plan his future and to achieve it. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « Why Should One Act on Principle? » (1988), dans Why Act on Principle? (op. cit.), chap. 1 : « A proper morality is a set of principles derived from reality, principles reducing the vast complexity of human choices to simple, retainable units, telling us which actions support human life and which ones destroy it. Primarily, the code offers guidance to the individual; then, in the social realm, it offers guidance on political questions. A man who acts on moral principles in this sense is neither a martyr nor a zealot nor a prig. He is a man whose actions are guided by man’s distinctive faculty of cognition. For man, principled action is the only successful kind of action. »
[56:44] Absence de compromis légitime sur les principes
  • « Doesn’t Life Require Compromise? », dans The Virtue of Selfishness, chap. 7, p. 68 : « [I]f one wanted to be paid and the alleged buyer wanted to obtain one’s product for nothing, no compromise, agreement or discussion would be possible, only the total surrender of one or the other. […] There can be no compromise between a property owner and a burglar; offering the burglar a single teaspoon of one’s silverware would not be a compromise, but a total surrender—the recognition of his right to one’s property. What value or concession did the burglar offer in return? And once the principle of unilateral concessions is accepted as the base of a relationship by both parties, it is only a matter of time before the burglar would seize the rest. […] There can be no compromise on basic principles or on fundamental issues. What would you regard as a “compromise” between life and death? Or between truth and falsehood? Or between reason and irrationality?
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1054 : « In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « Why Should One Act on Principle? » (1988), dans Why Act on Principle? (op. cit.), chap. 1 : « If moral principles are to function successfully in human life […], if they are to play their vital role, they must be accepted as absolutes. You cannot be “flexible” about them, or bend them according to your own or your group’s feelings; you cannot compromise them. This is the opposite of the pragmatist philosophy that dominates our culture… »
[56:49] Le compromis légitime
  • « Doesn’t Life Require Compromise? », dans The Virtue of Selfishness, chap. 7, p. 68 : « A compromise is an adjustment of conflicting claims by mutual concessions. This means that both parties to a compromise have some valid claim and some value to offer each other. And this means that both parties agree upon some fundamental principle which serves as a base for their deal. It is only in regard to concretes or particulars, implementing a mutually accepted basic principle, that one may compromise. For instance, one may bargain with a buyer over the price one wants to receive for one’s product, and agree on a sum somewhere between one’s demand and his offer. The mutually accepted basic principle, in such case, is the principle of trade, namely: that the buyer must pay the seller for his product. »
[57:32] Critique du « juste milieu »
  • Atlas Shrugged (op. cit.), p. 1054 : »There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil. »
  • PEIKOFF Leonard, « A Revolution: The Birth of Reason (Part II) » (1972), dans Founders of Western Philosophy (op. cit.), Lecture 5 : « First, notice that the trinity of attitudes that Aristotle ranges on a continuum do not in fact fall on a continuum at all. The vices in each case are differentiated from the virtues in kind, not just in degree (as Aristotle’s doctrine requires). […] Second, if it were just a difference in degree, there would be no argument in favor of the Mean. There is no reason why a mean is valid just because it’s a mean. The mere fact that some attitude is in the middle between two other attitudes doesn’t at all show that it’s therefore desirable. For instance, on one extreme we have never committed adultery, but on the other extreme we have committed adultery every night with a different partner. Is the Golden Mean just the right amount? Just the right amount of murder? Just the right amount of envious hatred? Obviously, your place on a continuum is irrelevant. Aristotle tries to encompass this type of case, and he holds, in effect: “These things (like murder, adultery, and so on) are already extremes, and therefore the doctrine of the Mean doesn’t apply. You can’t have a mean of an extreme.” But this is not a valid answer on his part. Because the question is: How does he know they are extremes? If you go solely by the doctrine of the Mean, we can range three attitudes on murder, or on adultery, etc., and then pick the middle. The fact is, Aristotle knew in advance that murder, for instance, is wrong, and he therefore classified it as an extreme. It’s not that it’s an extreme and therefore wrong, but rather, it’s wrong and, therefore, he concluded, an extreme—which means that his virtues are not in fact derived from the theory of the Mean at all, rather from, as he himself says, the observations of the wise Athenians. The Mean doctrine is no proof or definition of these virtues, just a way of expounding what we know on other grounds and as such, is philosophically insignificant. »
  • « The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus » (1965), dans Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (op. cit.), chap. 20, p. 205-206 : « What would constitute “moderation” in a conflict between a group of men who want to be supported at public expense—and a group of taxpayers who have other uses for their money? What would constitute “moderation” in a conflict between the member of a smaller group, such as a Negro in the South, who believes that he has an inalienable right to a fair trial—and the larger group of Southern racists who believe that the “public good” of their community permits them to lynch him? What would constitute “moderation” in a conflict between me and a communist (or between our respective followers), when my views are that I have an inalienable right to my life, liberty, and happiness—and his views are that the “public good” of the state permits him to rob, enslave, or murder me? There can be no meeting ground, no middle, no compromise between opposite principles. There can be no such thing as “moderation” in the realm of reason and of morality. »

À SUIVRE…

[58:14] Les droits
  • « Man’s Rights« , dans The Virtue of Selfishness, chap. 12, p. 92 : « “Rights” are a moral concept—the concept that provides a logical transition from the principles guiding an individual’s actions to the principles guiding his relationship with others— the concept that preserves and protects individual morality in a social context—the link between the moral code of a man and the legal code of a society, between ethics and politics. Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law. »
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